The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion withdrew citing the shoulder issue after reaching the semi-finals of the Yarra Valley Classic warm-up event on Friday; Naomi Osaka tournament favourite but withdrew from Gippsland Trophy due to a shoulder issue as well
Saturday 6 February 2021 14:00, UK
Serena Williams is confident a shoulder injury will not affect her Australian Open chances, while title favourite Naomi Osaka feels she is in a 'really good place' ahead of the first Grand Slam of the season.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion withdrew citing the shoulder issue after reaching the semi-finals of the Yarra Valley Classic warm-up event on Friday.
Williams said: "I feel pretty good. I've gotten a lot of treatment already on my shoulder. But I'm super confident it's going to be great. I'm feeling very confident, I think is a better word, and getting ready for hopefully the next two weeks."
Top players do not normally play tournaments the week before a Grand Slam and Naomi Osaka, Victoria Azarenka and Stan Wawrinka all joined Williams in withdrawing from warm-up events.
There was not too much alarm over Williams' decision, therefore, although she insisted the timing was not the most important factor.
The 39-year-old said: "I didn't really think about that so much. I was just thinking about more or less how I was feeling. I think at my age, my career, I really just try to go on how I'm feeling physically and not put myself in a bad position in general for my health."
It is now four years since Williams, who faces Germany's Laura Siegemund in the first round on Monday, won the most recent of her Grand Slam titles while in the early stages of pregnancy with daughter Olympia.
There is no doubt time is running out for her to achieve her goal of beating Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 singles titles, and the pressure certainly appeared to weigh heavily during the four finals she reached in 2018 and 2019.
"It's definitely on my shoulders and on my mind," she said. "I think it's good to be on my mind. I think it's a different burden on my shoulders because I'm used to it now. It's more relaxing."
Naomi Osaka goes into the tournament as the title favourite after winning the US Open and is on a sporadic winning streak dating back to last February.
Her withdrawal from the Gippsland Trophy, which she admitted was precautionary, was also due to a shoulder issue.
Osaka said: "Anyone that's followed me for a bit knows that I've had a slight shoulder thing since 2018 in Beijing. It kind of flared up again because I played a lot of matches back to back. But my main focus is hoping I can rest enough before the Open."
The Japanese star rocketed to the top of the game with victories at the US Open in 2019 and in Melbourne the following year but struggled under the spotlight until last summer when, driven to take a leading role in sport's support of the Black Lives Matter movement, she clinched a third major title.
Now ranked third, Osaka is targeting a return to the top spot but with a more relaxed attitude.
"It doesn't bother me as much as it used to because I remember when I first got to number one, I think nobody really acknowledged me as number one," she said.
"I remember I was in Indian Wells and I was talking to someone, they were like, 'What side of the draw are you on?' And the number one is always on the top side. It just made me think like, 'Wow, people don't really see me as number one'.
"I feel like since that point, I just kept trying to prove myself. I felt like that wasn't really a good mindset to have.
"I feel like right now I'm at a really good place. I just want to play every match as hard as I can. If it comes to the point where I'm able to be number one again, I'll embrace it, but I'm not really chasing it like that any more."
Three-time Grand Slam winner Osaka also said that sexist comments by the head of the Tokyo Olympics organising committee were "ignorant" but refrained from calling on Yoshiro Mori to resign.
The 83-year-old Mori, a former Japanese Prime Minister, said this week that women talked for too long in meetings.
He later retracted and apologised for the comments he had made in a meeting with the Japan Olympic Committee but refused calls to resign.
The 23-year-old Osaka, who was born in Japan to a Haitian father and Japanese mother and raised in the US, is planning on representing Japan at this summer's Games.
The comments set off a storm on social media at home and abroad, with a petition calling for action against Mori gathering tens of thousands of signatures on Friday, a day after its launch by Japanese activists.
"I did look at the comments. I didn't think they were good," Osaka said.
"I think if you're in a position like that, you really should think before you say anything. I don't know in what situation he said those things, but I think it's really uninformed and a bit ignorant."
"I think someone that makes comments like that, they need to have more knowledge on the thing that they're talking about.
"I'm not sure if it's a situation where someone should demand that he resigns or if it's just something that people need to make him understand that what he said wasn't right."
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