Naomi Osaka searching for right words in Paris

Naomi Osaka has three dreams — to meet Serena Williams, play at the Olympics and learn to speak Japanese, the language of her own country.

Osaka made the French Open third round on Wednesday having not played the tournament before and failing to win a match at all on clay this season.

After beating Croatian veteran Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, the 18-year-old faced questions from English-speaking reporters and answered nervously in English.

She then listened patiently to questions fired at her in Japanese, but again replied in English with a smattering of Japanese words thrown in for good measure.

“Oh my god, I have to work on my Japanese. This is terrible,” she told her compatriots having asked for Japanese translations of words she was using.

If she had misunderstood, she playfully slapped her forehead in exasperation. Her confusion is understandable.

Osaka was born in Tokyo to a Japanese mother and a Haitian father.

But when she was three, the family moved to New York where her father’s family live, hence her tendency to get tongue-tied when confronted with the language of the country in which she was born.

“It’s a country that I love,” said Osaka as she pondered playing the Olympics in Rio this year.