“Motivated” Naomi Osaka reaches semifinals at WTA 125 in Saint-Malo 

After suffering an early exit in Spain, Naomi Osaka has bounced back emphatically in France, where she reached the semifinals in Saint-Malo with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Elsa Jacquemot on Friday.

Last week, the former world No. 1 announced that she was taking a wild card into the WTA 125 event. The move was received as a sign of just how motivated the Japanese player, currently ranked No. 55, is to get back to her best tennis: It’s only the second time in Osaka's career that she’s played at this level, which sits between tour level and the lower-level ITF circuit in prestige. Back then, in 2015, Osaka was 18 years old and ranked No. 203.

But as coach Patrick Mouratoglou told Tennis Channel 2’s Second Serve earlier this week, “the thing she needs the most” is to build up match fitness and regain momentum after seeing Osaka’s progress repeatedly halted due to injury.

Read More: After first-round Madrid loss, Naomi Osaka takes wild card to WTA 125 in France

“We decided to play a smaller tournament this week, we are in Saint-Malo in France,” Mouratoglou told hosts Tracy Austin, Sloane Stephens, Nick Monroe and Geoff Chizever.

“She really needs to play matches. For the last six to eight months she has been injured a lot, so unfortunately she hasn’t been able to play enough.

“We feel it’s the thing that she needs the most now. We had three weeks of intensive practice on clay, so she is ready to play.”

Things didn’t go according to plan at the WTA 1000 Mutua Madrid Open, where the four-time Grand Slam winner came up short to Lucia Bronzetti 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 in the first round. The defeat followed an equally up-and-down stretch of results from the Sunshine Swing, with Osaka losing in the first round in Indian Wells and then reaching the fourth round in Miami.

"I’m done with my crashout,” Osaka wrote on social media, determined to look on the bright side after her disappointing Madrid exit. “I refuse to be sad, I rebuke it…

“I lowkey have short-term memory loss so I don’t stay discouraged for long. We woke up this morning, we’re blessed, we’re healthy and we’re happy.”

Read More: "Done with my crashout": Naomi Osaka ready for reset after losing Madrid opener

Osaka took that positive mentality to Saint-Malo, and scored her first clay-court win of the season against Petra Marcinko with a confidence-boosting 6-2, 6-1 scoreline. She moved past back-to-back French opponents Diane Parry and Jacquemot, and will face another in Leolia Jeanjean for a place in the final.

Should she win, it would mark her second final of the year after getting to that stage at the WTA 250 event in Auckland. Osaka was forced to retire after winning the first set against Clara Tauson due to abdominal injury.

“I’m very motivated because I feel her motivation to come back and to do great things again,” Mouratoglou said of Osaka. “...I think she’s really practicing well, she’s improving a lot, but if you look at the past three, four years, she really lacks matches. She really needs to play much more.

"I’m sure that everything will fall back in place once she will be able to compete regularly."