Dominant Osaka sails into Bad Homburg semis
Four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka advanced to the semi-finals of the Wimbledon warm-up tournament in Bad Homburg, Germany after a dominant victory over Ekaterina Alexandrova on Thursday.
The Japanese sixth seed won 6-2, 6-2 in just 59 minutes to reach the final four of the grass court tournament just days from the start of Wimbledon.
Osaka, the world number 15, is one win away from a first grass-court final of her career.
"Obviously I can't say that I've had much experience on grass, but I feel really good right now," Osaka said, adding that coach Tomas Wiktorowski, who started working with her last July, "is helping me understand grass a lot more, so I feel pretty comfortable at this point."
Osaka was broken early in the opening set but swiftly struck back against the unseeded Russian.
Osaka won eight straight games -- a run which included 15 points in a row -- as she took the opening set and ran out to a 3-0 lead in the second.
The 19th-ranked Alexandrova rallied to win her next two service games but Osaka closed out the match in just under an hour.
Osaka will play Chinese world number 52 Wang Xinyu, who reached the final four when eighth-ranked Ukranian Elina Svitolina pulled out citing exhaustion on Wednesday.
Fourth seed Karolina Muchova also made the last four after coming from a set down to beat Dane Clara Tauson 1-6, 6-2, 6-4 on Thursday.
Tauson exploded out of the gates and broke the world number 11 three times while dropping just one game in the opening set.
Muchova returned the favour in the second, breaking Tauson three times to set up a deciding set, which she won to take the match in two hours and three minutes.
The Czech will face off against Romania's Elena-Gabriel Ruse in the semi-finals. Ruse beat American Emma Navarro 6-4, 6-2 in one hour and 15 minutes earlier on Thursday.
Ch.Thomson--EWJ
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