Naomi Osaka rallies past Sloane Stephens in gusty BNP Paribas Open first-round matchup

Naomi Osaka faced a pair of break points, trailing by two games in the third set, but rallied to win the game, the set and match for a 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory over Sloane Stephens on Thursday in the first round of the BNP Paribas Open.

Saving those break points proved to be the turning point for Osaka who, instead of trailing by three games, won the next six in a row to close out the match and advance on a gusty Stadium Court at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

The four-time Grand Slam champion, who won her first tournament title here at Indian Wells in 2018, fought off winds that reached up to 45 mph during the match. It caused both players problems, as each struggled to hold serve at various points of the match.

“I felt like I was fighting for my life,” Osaka told the stadium crowd after her win. “I was playing against her. I was playing against the wind. It was crazy. I just kept thinking that she was going through the same circumstances as me, so I just had to will myself to try as hard as I could.”

Osaka will next play Veronika Kudermetova of Russia on Saturday.

Thursday’s match, between two Grand Slam champions, was all about runs. Stephens immediately went up a break to start the match, only to have Osaka rally to take a 3-1 lead in the first set. But Osaka, who had not played a match since January at the Australian Open, couldn’t hold the lead and Stephens rallied to take the first set.

Stephens won the set with just two winners, an indication that her win may have been more about Osaka not playing well than whatever Stephens was doing.

That proved to be true as Osaka stopped making errors and won the first five games of the second set to regain control of the match.

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The third game of the third set was crucial and Osaka clearly knew it. She chased down every ball and scored three consecutive points to win the game and stay in contact with Stephens, trailing just 2-1 instead of 3-0.

Osaka initially entered the tournament as a wild card, then became part of the main draw as an unseeded player when other players withdrew. But she is still a favorite to win this tournament.

Few players are as good on hard courts as Osaka, who won Indian Wells and all four of her Grand Slams on the playing surface. But she’ll have to navigate a run from a difficult spot in the draw to win another Indian Wells title.

Another win would likely set up a match with fourth-seeded Anett Kontaveit of Estonia just to get into the Round of 16.