Live from Wimbledon Day 5 - Osaka peaks for Sabalenka clash

**Catherine** (0:11)
Hello and welcome to The Tennis Podcast, live from Wimbledon and presented by Barclays, the official banking partner of Wimbledon. It is day five of the championships we have. Our first players through to the second week. It has been an absolutely stunning day here. It still is a stunning day, frankly. It's a beautiful evening, 9.3 local time. We're up here on the broadcast roof, our incredible position, overlooking the grounds, just slowly being put to sleep for the night. Matt, David, I want to start with the women's draw on today's show. Not just because we've had some great matches today, we have, but more than that, we have set up some absolutely tantalising, delicious matches for two days time. How is this for a round of 16 line up in this top half of the draw?
Aryna Sabalenka against Naomi Osaka, Karolina Muchova against Barbora Krejickova, Jessica Pugula against Iva Jovic, and Belinda Bencic against Coco Gauff.

**David** (1:16)
I'm not sure it gets much better than that. Any better than that. We were over on court one, Catherine and I, just watching Coco Gauff, really having to go through it against Claire Liu in a third set there. And I was thinking, right, now who does Coco Gauff play if she wins this match? Well, I brought up the draw and I said, Catherine, have you seen this?
Look at the top of this draw. The fact that it's Sabalenka or Osaka, with Osaka playing the way that she is, Puguli, your picks for the title.
And her draw is challenging as well. And then to think you've still got Coco Gauff in there, up against Belinda Bencic, which I always think of as just a great matchup, just a great contrast of styles. And then Krejickova and Muchova, I don't think you could get a more picturesque looking ball striking, ball caressing match than that, you know?

**Catherine** (2:12)
I thought you were going to say pretty, and then I would have said, Grigor Dimitrov disagrees with you.

**David** (2:17)
Yeah, yeah, I'm not Grigor.

**Catherine** (2:20)
When David said to me, by the way, have you seen these matches? I said, yes, David, please look at the agenda.

**Matt** (2:30)
Yeah, it's great, it's so good. And yeah, I think David's described it well. Like Bencic's graph always has a little bit of edge to it. Pugula Jovic got the two Americans, both great ball strikers. Muchova, Krejickova, both Czechs, both with a great slice backhand and comfortable on this surface. And Sabalenka and Sarko is kind of the, the sort of real star power matchup that we hadn't seen for years. And now we're seeing it all the time on different surfaces. And I don't know, I'm maybe more excited about it this time than I have been at any time recently when they've met. So, oh, it's, it's perfect. Like tomorrow's order of play is excellent, but I'm also incredibly excited for Sunday already.

**Catherine** (3:16)
Yeah, it's great knowing that you've got backed up, guaranteed great days ahead. Should we start with Sabalenka and Osaka and kind of treat them as a duo because they're playing in the next round? Sabalenka beating Elena Ostapenko, 6-4, 6-4, and Osaka dismissing Dario Kazakina, 6-1, 6-3. Naomi Osaka has lost 15 games in, in three rounds in this tournament. I mean, there is something different about Naomi Osaka here.
I think generally for a little while, actually. She talked about that a little bit in her press conference, but she's never been like this at Wimbledon before, I don't think.

**David** (3:59)
No, no. We've never seen the real Naomi Osaka at Wimbledon, in my opinion.
I think we're getting that now. The, the, the, the, the clarity with which she's playing, the ball striking is there, the movement is there. It's, it's all there. And she's, I, and I, I do feel like the, the designs that she's got for her clothes that she comes out in have sort of empowered her as a, as a presence on the court. She just looks really up for everything, you know. And, and that's, we, Catherine, you and I were talking a little bit about the United Cup at the start of this year, when she, when she didn't have that vibe about her. And I, and I was a little concerned, but definitely seems to be in a really great place. My only concern from her perspective is that she just can't seem to get near Aryna Sabalenka when they actually play. Not most of the time anyway, and the most recent one being at Run and Go.
And, and it's so tempting to think, well, this time it'll be different, because look how she's playing. But look, Sabalenka is just that good and seems to raise her own level against Osaka. So, but I won't get tired of seeing Osaka set up another one and have another go. I think when we were watching it in Paris, we did wonder how much longer can she keep taking drubbins like that and coming back with hope and optimism and all the grinds you have to go through. The travel and everything else, if she doesn't get any good news. But I don't think she's been playing better than this coming into one of those matches.