Dubai: Japan’s top women’s tennis player Naomi Osaka doesn’t want to change anything in her game as she targets some more seniors on the WTA Tour in the future.

The Japanese player with mixed parentage — her dad is from Haiti and mum is Japanese — shot into the limelight while reaching the final of the 2016 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo. En route she defeated more established players such as Misaki Doi, Dominika Cibulkova and Elina Svitolina to reach her first-ever WTA final, where she fell to Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets.

That result, however, pushed Osaka into the top-50 of the WTA from where the 20-year-old was voted the newcomer of the year at the 2016 WTA Awards, while also going on to improve her ranking with each passing week.

“I doubt I need to change anything much when it comes to my game. Maybe I have to play better during the more important points as these are the best players in the world,” Osaka said after her 6-2, 6-4 quarter-final loss to top seed and defending champion Elina Svitolina at the Dubai Duty Free Women’s Open on Thursday.

“I need to work harder and pay more attention to the weak chinks so that I am better prepared for these top-ranked players,” she added.

Making her second appearance in Dubai after being handed a wild card this year, Osaka is the first Japanese player to reach the Dubai quarter-finals since Ai Sugiyama’s run to the semi-finals way back in 2004. Though she enjoyed modest success in 2016, Osaka has struggled for consistency. Her 2018 season began with a first-round loss to Yulia Putintseva at the Hobart International. Her run at the Australian Open ended with a round-of-16 loss to runner-up Simona Halep, while she made it to the second round in Doha last week.

“There are no big secrets. The key for me is to find ways to remain more consistent with my game,” she related.

“It has been tough trying to find my rhythm against such top players. And to make things worse, today was perhaps my worst match against the top-10 players. Normally, I am more focused and give a much better account of myself against such players,” Osaka said.

“I need to play better and clever,” she added.