I woke up around 4:00 a.m. and the channel happened to be on ESPN, and of course, I got sucked into this and watched the whole rest of the match. When Osaka took a 5-3 lead after her serve in the 2nd set, she was absolutely rolling. At 5-3, she had a triple match point on Kvitova's serve (0-40) and Kvitova made a couple good shots, and an ace, and Osaka literally fell apart. She was still up 5-4 and on serve after giving away that game, and couldn't do anything from there, Kvitova broker her to make it 5-5 and then Kvitova just steamrolled her to win the set. Osaka was fighting back tears at one point, and had to leave the court between sets to gather herself.
In the third set, Osaka showed literally no emotion. Didn't get happy, didn't get upset, just zero emotion from start to finish. When she was rolling in the middle of the 2nd set, she was all fired up, so it was a complete departure from what she showed earlier. I thought she was going to blow it, but she managed to find her game, and pulled it out. I think Chris Evert was right on when she said that Osaka was going to learn a lot about herself and her game from this tournament. She had to fight back so many times, and she did.
It was really nice to see her win the next grand slam after Serena shit all over what should have been her breakthrough performance at the US Open. Her public speaking though...woof.