Defending champion Naomi Osaka withdrew from the Pan Pacific Open ahead of her second round match on Thursday due to illness. “I am very sorry that I will not be able to compete today,” Osaka said in a statement. “It is an honor to be able to play in the Pan Pacific Open in front of the amazing fans here in Japan. This has been and always will be a special tournament for me and I wish I had stepped on the court, but my body won’t let me. I’ll see you next year.” Osaka did not specify the illness, saying before the tournament that she was healthy and fit.
She was the previous Pan Pacific champion from 2019 and advanced to the second round this week after Daria Saville withdrew with a knee injury in their first round matchup. Fifth-seeded Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia benefited from Osaka’s withdrawal and will face fourth-seeded Veronika Kudermetova in the quarterfinals, who for her part dominated 6-0, 6-1 over Mexican Fernanda Contreras Gómez .
Contreras Gomez had no answer for Kudermetova’s clinical efficiency by failing to show the level of play with which she beat 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin in the first round. The fourth-seeded Kudermetova made no mistakes, but has a bigger challenge against Haddad Maia.
In other second-round matchups, Petra Martic defeated sixth-seeded Karolina Pliskova 6-3, 6-4, and in a matchup between unseeded players, Liudmila Samsonova beat Chinese 7-6 (5), 6-3. Xinyu Wang. In Friday’s quarterfinals, Martic will play China’s Zhang Shuai, Samsonova will face third-seeded Garbiñe Muguruza, and American Claire Liu will meet China’s Qinwen Zheng.