Naomi Osaka regains her championship form in Osaka tourney

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Naomi Osaka with the "trophy" given to the champion of the Toray Pan tournament held in Osaka, Japan.

After losing her No. 1 ranking and being ousted from the U.S. Open, tennis star Naomi Osaka appears to have rebounded by winning the Toray Pan event in Osaka, Japan, the city where the Japanese American was born.

The final score against Bulgaria's Viktoriya Tomova, 7-5, 6-3, but the match was not as close as the score might indicate.

In fact, she showed the same self-confidence and control in all her matches in the tournament.

It seems firing her coach, Jermaine Jenkins, lifted a weight off her shoulders.  Under Jenkins, Osaka has had difficulty getting past the early rounds in the French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open.

"I'm super grateful for the time we spent ... and the things i learned on and off the court ... now is an appropriate time for change," she wrote on Twitter about their split.

There was no sign of any problems with the knee that slowed her down in the U.S. Open as she took control and executed the shots she needed to win. 

She never dropped a set the entire tournament and the only struggle might have been coming up with some Japanese to converse to her Asian fans.

"it's really special for me to win here. This is the City I was born in and it gave me a lot of power to play here."

Osaka earned her No. 1 ranking, the first Asian American to win that distinction in tennis, when she won the U.S. Open last year. Since since then, she lost, regained, then lost that ranking because of her erratic play.

Although, she officially plays for Japan, Osaka was raised in New York City, lives and trains in the US.

Osaka, whose mother is Japanese and father is Haitian-American, has citizenship in both Japan and the United States. Under Japanese law, dual citizens must choose between the two nationalities by the time they turn 22. Osaka turns 22 in October. 

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