Naomi Osaka and Victoria Mboko came good on hints they would skip this week’s Cincinnati Masters, with the finalist and winner at the just-concluded WTA event in Montreal tournament pulling the plug on Friday.

Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion, merely blamed “scheduling issues” for her decision, while the teenaged Mboko was actually suffering in Canada with a right wrist problem.     

“I woke up this morning, and I actually had my wrist a little bit swollen from yesterday’s (semi-final) fall,” she said after her three-set finals win over Japan’s Osaka.

“We quickly went to the hospital for an MRI and an X-ray before I came
to the courts to practice. But we got the green light that nothing too serious was going on in the wrist.”

A Cincinnati start already looked dead in the water. “I’m not planning on playing Cincinnati at the moment. I just want to take care of my wrist a little bit right now,” she said.

“It’s just very close and sudden for me to go there and play again in  like, two days. 

“I think I’m just going to sit out on that one and prepare for the upcoming tournaments.”

Osaka also did little to hide her decision to skip Cincy  “It’s going to be really interesting to go to Cincinnati. I don’t know. I feel like I’m a little teeter-tottering.

“It’s going to be interesting to see, yeah, what my next match is and how I’m going to play.”

Naomi Osaka stormed into the quarter-finals of the WTA event in Montreal, with the four-time Grand Slam winner clocking the second-quickest win of her career.

The Japanese player wasted no time in putting together a 6-1, 6-0 thrashing of Anastasija Sevastova which took just 49 minutes. Her fastest was 42 minutes in 2016 in Brazil.

Osaka has booked the last eight of a major event for the first time in more than a year and a half as she fights back to form after a childbirth pause and an extended tennis break

The result duplicates her Canadian quarter-final form 2019; she will aim for a first semi-final at the 1000 level since Miami three years ago.

“I had a solid plan coming in here, and it happened to work out very well,” Osaka said.

Osaka ran her record against the Latvian to three consecutive wins, but played six years ago; she broke five times and sent over 13 winners against the No. 386.

“I’m definitely really happy, today was obviously faster than I thought it would
be, but I’m really happy with how the game plan went, and I’m excited to play my next match,” Osaka said.

“Of course I would want to win Slams, of course I would want to be in the top 10, but I think I need to pace myself and go for the mini goals, and
they’ll eventually turn into the big goals

“Being in the quarter-finals is a step towards hopefully getting to the semis and the finals, so I’ll try to treat it more like that.”

Clara Tauson stunned Iga Swiatek 7-6 (1), 6-3 on Sunday to power into the quarter-finals at the WTA Montreal event, taking revenge for a loss to the former world No. 1 at Wimbledon.

The Danish outsider lost to the Pole in the Wimbledon fourth round last month as Swiatek went on to take the title at the major.

But losing to Tauson in Canada ended the Swiatek win streak at eight straight matches and gave the Scandinavian her first win in the series after three defeats.

Tauson needed nearly two hours to advance to her second defeat of a top 10 player; she beat world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in February in Dubai.

She now takes on another Grand Slam winner in Australian Open holder Madison Keys, the sixth seed.

“It was a good match. I was playing really solid and serving well in important moments,” the winner said. “She’s obviously a great player that I’ve never beaten before, so I can’t complain.

“I’m getting more confidence in this kind of level and feeling like I belong here a bit more. 

“Getting a win against her after losing to her in Wimbledon is obviously nice, because I was not feeling great in that match, and I felt like I was playing some good tennis in Wimbledon. 

“I felt like if I could keep that going, I thought I had a shot. It’s really nice to sit here now.”

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Keys saved a pair of match points in her fourth-round win over Karolina Muchova  4-6, 6-3, 7-5.