Naomi Osaka Makes Washington Kastles Debut Tomorrow in Home Finale

Naomi Osaka makes her Washington Kastles debut tomorrow

From our friends at the Washington Kastles...

Second-Place Kastles Host First-Place Philadelphia Freedoms at 5:00 PM in Crucial Match in the Chase for the King Trophy

Naomi Osaka, the 17th ranked player in the world and one of the fastest-rising stars in tennis, will make her World TeamTennis and Washington Kastles debut tomorrow, Saturday, July 28 at 5:00 PM, as the 6-3 Kastles take on the league-leading Philadelphia Freedoms. The Kastles will first face the Freedoms, featuring 2017 US Open Champion Sloane Stephens, tonight in a special WTT match-up in Chicago. Then they’ll return to DC on Saturday for a 5:00 PM battle with Osaka leading the Kastles.

Osaka began her precipitous rise in 2017 at the US Open, where she scored her first win over a top-10 player when she defeated current Wimbledon champion and former US and Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber. She later defeated second-seeded Venus Williams in the round of 16 in Hong Kong.

This year has been even more successful for the Osaka, Japan native. At the Australian Open, she reached the round of 16 before losing to world #1 Simona Halep. She then went on to stun the tennis world in March by winning the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, defeating Maria Sharapova in the first round, followed by a long list of WTA champions, including Halep, Agnieszka Radwańska, Karolína Plíšková, and Daria Kasatkina in the final, 6-3, 6-2. Osaka became just the third unseeded champion to win Indian Wells, following Serena Williams (1999) and Kim Clijsters (2005.)

A week later, the Indian Wells champ defeated Serena Williams in the first round of the Miami Open, again by a score of 6-3, 6-2.

Last month, Osaka was knocked out of Wimbledon in the third round by Kerber, who went on to defeat S. Williams in the final.