Japan's Naomi Osaka ended an eight-month title dry spell by winning the Pan Pacific Open in her home city on September 22, her first trophy since her second back to back Grand Slam triumphs at the US Open and the Australian Open. 

A special win for Osaka

The former world number one overpowered Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-2, 6-3 in a little more than an hour to make it third time lucky in the finals at the competition after finishing as a runner up in 2016 and 2018.

The US-based star, holder of last year's US Open, was born in Osaka and it was a happy homecoming for the 21-year-old who grinned her way through a predominant week on court. She turned into the first Japanese player to win the Pan Pacific title since Kimiko Date in 1995.

Naomi stated that she has already played finals here and that was her third final and winning that final made her really happy and feel special. She further added that her serves are doing really well.

The world number 4 also said that she serves really helped her as Pavlyuchenkova is a big hitter on the court as Osaka made it to the final without dropping a set. 

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4 aces

Pavlyuchenkova had no solution to Osaka's amazing and perfect first serves as the Japanese won an ideal 100 per cent of the points when her first serve was fruitful and battered the opponent a with 4 aces.

Osaka snatched a 3-0 lead at an early stage in the match and was once in a while troubled from that point on as the World number 41 Russian was dominated and was not able to get a breakpoint while the fan-favourite broke Pavlyuchenkova twice in the first set and once in the second set with a variety of incredible groundstrokes from the two sides. 

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Osaka's initial hopes of winning were dashed when her match-winning point was overruled after Pavlyuchenkova's challenge.
It did not matter much as Osaka's backhand that went out as the match was sealed a few minutes after the Russian hit the ball in the net.

This win was a redemption for Osaka when Pavlyuchenkova defeated her in straight sets during the 2017 Hong Kong Open tournament. 

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