Naomi Osaka explains why she never felt confident she could beat Emma Navarro in Wimbledon loss

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Naomi Osaka was extremely disappointed after losing to Emma Navarro at the Wimbledon Championships.

After edging Diane Parry in straight sets to reach round two, the 27-year-old faced the 19th seed who is enjoying the best year of her career so far.

It was always going to be a tricky encounter for the four-time Grand Slam champion, who has struggled on grass and she was playing at the All-England Club for the first time since 2019.

Despite playing a competitive first set, Osaka was always second-best in the Centre Court contest and her latest Wimbledon campaign has come to a premature end.

Naomi Osaka assesses Wimbledon loss to Emma Navarro

Though the match began with both players holding their first three service games, it was Osaka who blinked first.

She committed four consecutive unforced errors which gave Navarro a break of serve, before she consolidated for a 5-3 lead and the American went on to win the set 6-4.

That break of serve in the fourth game of the first set was the turning point, as Osaka won just two games after that moment as Navarro won 6-4, 6-1.

Discussing what went wrong, Osaka told reporters: “Honestly, I feel like even though in the beginning it was kind of like we were trading games, I don’t know why, I didn’t feel fully confident in myself.

“I didn’t feel like I was playing that well. I guess those doubts started trickling in a lot into my game. Obviously the second set wasn’t that great.

“I feel like for me, I don’t know… I don’t know why those thoughts were so prevalent, yeah. I’m excited to go back on hard courts but I’m a bit disappointed because I wanted to do really well and I put a lot of time into it. But there’s always next year.”

What was Naomi Osaka’s grass court record in 2024?

After five long years Osaka returned to the grass courts and played two tournaments before entering Wimbledon.

She entered the Libema Open and claimed victories over Elise Mertens and Suzan Lamens before losing a tight three set match to Bianca Andreescu.

Suffered another three set loss in the opening round of the Berlin Grass Court Championships, but went into Wimbledon fresh and ready to play.

After sneaking past Parry after going down a break on two occasions in the final set, Navarro proved to be a step too far for Osaka. She will play Diana Shnaider in round three.