TOKYO, July 26, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - Home favourite Naomi Osaka stepped up her
quest for Olympic gold on Monday as she eased into third round of the Tokyo
Games tennis tournament with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Switzerland's Viktorija
Golubic.

  The Japanese star was playing for the second time in as many days after her
first match was put back 24 hours, with Osaka given the honour of lighting
the Olympic cauldron in Friday's opening ceremony.

  Osaka earned the first break of the match to take a 5-3 lead, saving a
break point with an emphatic smash in the following game as she served out to
take the first set.

  The second seed broke the 50th-ranked Golubic twice in a row to begin the
second set, pocketing seven straight games before clinching victory in 65
minutes.

  She will meet the winner between 2019 French Open runner-up Marketa
Vondrousova and Romania's Mihaela Buzarnescu for a place in the quarter-
finals.

  Osaka is the highest-ranked player left in the draw following the shock
exit of world number one and Wimbledon champion Ashleigh Barty in the first
round.