As for the challenge that Osaka will present, she is ready for that, too.
“I feel like the last match in Madrid was, really tight match, was great level,” Sabalenka said. “She really stepped in and raised her level in the last match. I’m just ready for the fight. I’m ready to go out there to fight for that match, for that win. Ready to do anything it takes to get the win.”
Osaka is taking a slightly more chilled approach to Monday’s match. She will fight tooth and nail, sure enough, but clay is not her natural surface and she is telling herself not to get too stressed if things do not go exactly according to plan.
“I just thought to myself, I don’t have to win every single point,” she said, “but I just have to try every single point, and hopefully it goes in my favour. That’s basically it.”
It is, more or less, what her coach, Tomasz Wiktorowski, has been drumming into her for the clay court season.
“With Tomasz, it’s not like he gives me clay-specific advice,” she said. “He doesn’t come in with a rule book on clay. He kind of just tells me more about my game and what he would prefer me to do.”
The match in a nutshell, then, is the fire against the ice. Let battle commence.
