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Osaka was forced to save two match points in the fourth round against Garbine Muguruza. Brady was forced to complete two weeks of hard hotel quarantine before commencing her Australian summer campaign.
Yet here they are, having dropped just three sets between them all fortnight.
While Osaka, a three-time major champion and superstar of the sport, faces a Grand Slam final debutant, this is hardly a one-sided match-up.
It follows their glorious US Open semifinal from 2020, a match widely acclaimed as the best women’s contest of the year and one which Osaka’s declared as “probably in the top two matches I’ve played in my life”.
An occasion full of huge serving, power-hitting and a steady stream of winners, Osaka needed three sets to subdue the threat of the then-untested American.
While it is not unusual to see Osaka in another major final, this is unfamiliar territory for the 24th-ranked Brady, who has won nine of her past 10 matches.
Those with a passing interest in tennis may never have heard of the 25-year-old prior to AO2021. The American has never been ranked inside the top 20, and until her US Open semifinal last year had never been beyond the fourth round at a Slam.
But after changing up her team and training base – she works with coach Michael Geserer in Germany – Brady enjoyed an incredible upward swing in 2020.
She beat Maria Sharapova and top-ranked Ash Barty at the Brisbane International to start the year, won 12 of her first 17 matches before COVID-19 suspended the sport, then claimed her first WTA title in Lexington when tennis resumed in August. Then came her semifinal run in New York.
History shows that if Osaka gets beyond the fourth round of a major tournament, she wins the trophy. But Brady has proven she belongs amongst the women’s elite. So who will come out on top in the Australian Open 2021 final?
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