Tennis’s Osaka Rises to the Top
posted by Antonio Mitchell | October 23, 2020 | In SportsNaomi Osaka is a nationally recognized tennis player after her gram slam wins at the 2018 U.S. Open and the 2019 Australian Open. After defeating Serena Williams at the 2018 U.S. Open, her career took off. Osaka became the first Japanese player to win a gram slam. Then Osaka went to the 2019 Australian Open and won that and became the first player to win a major title after winning a gram slam since 2001. That win made her the first Japanese male or female to earn the world’s No.1 ranking in tennis.
Osaka was born in Osaka, Japan, on October 16, 1997. After seeing Serena and Venus Williams at the French Open 1999, Osaka’s father decided to follow the same path as Serena and Venus’s father and teach Osaka tennis. Then the family decided to move to the U.S. They lived on Long Island, where Naomi and her sister Mari started to play tennis, then they move to Florida.
Osaka went pro in 2013. Then, in 2016, she was nominated as “Newcomer Of The Year.” She then went on to win her first WTA tour event at Indian Wells, California, in March 2018.
Recently, Osaka has been a huge advocate for Black equality by initially withdrawing from her Southern and Western Open but later was encouraged to continue. During this year’s U.S. Open, Osaka has been wearing masks with names of African Americans that has been victims of police brutality. She has worn names like Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Elijah McClain, and Breonna Taylor. It received a lot of attention in the media and from the victims’ parents that they even thanked her for showing her support. With her influence in social media and the sports world, Osaka is making a huge impact on the awareness of police brutality in a sport that doesn’t really have a lot of African Americans playing it.
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