After a couple of rounds at the US Open, it’s become clear that Osaka is the clear favorite. She looks poised to run through the draw on her way to her second US Open title. There really doesn’t seem to be a player out there that can contest her game. Pliskova, as the number one seed, never looked comfortable in her two outings, and as such was beaten routinely by Caroline Garcia. Kudos to Garcia though, she’s a great player that deserves to be ranked much higher than she is. Maybe this is the Grand Slam she can go deep in?

Back to Pliskova though. She’s got a beautiful and fluid game. However, she just doesn’t seem to have that extra “secret sauce” that great champions have to win a Grand Slam. I hope she proves us wrong, but I doubt she will be holding a Grand Slam title any time soon.

Now back to Osaka. She had to pull out of the Cincinnati Masters final with a thigh injury. That’s really too bad because it would have been nice to see how she would have played against an Azarenka who has been looking like the Azarenka that won two Grand Slams a few years back. Nevertheless, the injury now looks fully healed as she breezes into the third round of this US Open.

As this tournament goes on, it’s starting to look very likely that she will indeed get that match with Azarenka. Like I said, Azarenka is looking mighty good on these hard courts, breezing through her first few matches and looking like she’s ready to go deep. Azarenka has both Kenin and Williams on her side of the draw. As for Osaka, it will probably be smooth sailing until the final.

The fact that Azarenka, Kenin and Williams are on the bottom of the draw should make Osaka even more positive about her prospects in New York. Simply let those three fight it out and by the time they get to Osaka in the final, they won’t have enough in the tank to put up a fight. Will that be the case? What do you think?

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