Muchová Beats Osaka on Ninth Match Point

Karolína Muchová of the Czech Republic beat Japan’s Naomi Osaka 7⁠–⁠5, 1⁠–⁠6, 7⁠–⁠6(7) on Tuesday, 6 October, at the China Open in Beijing to reach the quarter-finals. The match lasted 2 hours and 52 minutes, and Muchová needed nine match points to finish it (WTA).

The women’s China Open is a WTA 1000 event, one of the biggest women’s tennis tournaments outside the four Grand Slams. It runs alongside the men’s tournament in the same city and ends on Sunday. Muchová is the seventh seed and Osaka the twelfth. A match point is a point that will win the match if the leading player takes it. Muchová had nine before she finally won one (WTA; AP via TSN).

She was behind for much of the match. Osaka led 4⁠–⁠1 in the first set before Muchová came back to win it 7⁠–⁠5. Osaka took the second set 6⁠–⁠1 and led 3⁠–⁠1 in the third. Muchová fought back again and, at 5⁠–⁠4 in the third set with Osaka serving, had three match points in a row. She could not take any of them, and she missed five match points in that game alone (WTA).

The set went to a tie-break, the deciding game played when a set reaches six games all, which is won by the first player to seven points with a two-point margin. Muchová missed three more match points there. On the ninth she played a delicate backhand volley winner and took the tie-break 9⁠–⁠7 (WTA; ESPN).

“I honestly didn’t even believe I will finish the match,” Muchová said in her on-court interview. “So many match points, I didn’t know how many. After a match point I was like, OK, I’m going for it, but then I think she always played great and steady, and didn’t make mistakes — unlike me, unfortunately! I was shaking. I’m happy that I made the last volley and it was really so close. Naomi could be standing here. It’s me, and I’m really grateful for it” (WTA).

It was the eighth meeting of a rivalry that goes back six years. Muchová now leads it 5⁠–⁠3, after two wins over Osaka on grass earlier this year. On outdoor hard courts, the surface in Beijing, they are level at two wins each (WTA).

The win confirms a strong season. It is Muchová’s fourth quarter-final this year at the sport’s biggest events, meaning the WTA 1000 tournaments and the Grand Slams. She won the title in Doha, reached the Wimbledon final and made the semi-finals in Miami. She was also the runner-up in Beijing in 2024, and she is trying to win a third title this season (WTA).

Her route this week has been tough. Before Osaka she beat Katie Boulter 7⁠–⁠6(3), 6⁠–⁠1 and Liudmila Samsonova 4⁠–⁠6, 6⁠–⁠4, 6⁠–⁠2. Osaka had come through two matches of her own, against Maria Timofeeva and Sara Bejlek (ESPN).

Muchová’s next opponent will be either fellow Czech Nikola Bartůňková, the 26th seed, or Austria’s Sinja Kraus. Bartůňková beat Aryna Sabalenka 6⁠–⁠4, 6⁠–⁠3 on Sunday to reach the last 16, and Kraus beat Dayana Yastremska 6⁠–⁠1, 6⁠–⁠4 the same day. Their match was still being played at press time (WTA; ESPN).

The women’s draw in Beijing has already lost its top player. Elena Rybakina, the world No. 1 and US Open champion, lost in the second round on Saturday to Alina Charaeva of Armenia, ranked No. 118, and has since withdrawn from the upcoming Wuhan Open with a foot injury (AP via CBC Sports).

What a reader can take from Tuesday in Beijing is a match that kept slipping away and came back. Muchová fell behind in the first and third sets, wasted eight chances to win, and still won on the ninth. She is through to the quarter-finals, and her opponent is still to be decided.