Naomi Osaka

Naomi Osaka (大坂 なおみ) is a Japanese professional tennis player.

She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and is the first Asian player to hold the top ranking in singles.

Osaka is a four-time Grand Slam singles champion, with two Australian Open and two US Open titles.

Her seven titles on the WTA Tour also include two at the Premier Mandatory level.

Naomi Osaka was born on October 16, 1997, in Chūō-ku, Osaka in Japan to Tamaki Osaka (大坂 環) and Leonard François.

Her mother is from Nemuro, Hokkaido, Japan, and her father is from Jacmel, Haiti.

She has an older sister, Mari, who is a former professional tennis player.

The sisters were given their mother's family name as that was the practice when just one spouse held native citizenship.

Osaka's parents met when her father was visiting Hokkaido while he was a college student in New York.

When Osaka was three years old, her family moved from Japan to the US to live with her father's parents in Elmont, New York on Long Island.

Her father was inspired to teach his daughters how to play tennis by watching the Williams sisters compete at the 1999 French Open.

Having little experience as a tennis player himself, he sought to emulate how Richard Williams trained his daughters to become two of the best players in the world, despite having never played the sport.

François remarked that "the blueprint was already there. I just had to follow it," with regard to the detailed plan Richard had developed for his daughters.

He began coaching Naomi and Mari once they settled in the United States.

In 2006, her family moved to Florida when she was eight or nine years old so that they would have better opportunities to train.

She practiced on the Pembroke Pines public courts during the day and was homeschooled at night.

When she was 15years old, she began working with Patrick Tauma at the ISP Academy.

She came to prominence at age 16 when she defeated former US Open champion Samantha Stosur in her WTA Tour debut at the 2014 Stanford Classic.

In 2014, she moved to the Harold Solomon Tennis Academy.

She later trained at the ProWorld Tennis Academy.

Although Osaka was raised in the United States, her parents decided that their daughters would represent Japan.

They said, "We made the decision that Naomi would represent Japan at an early age. She was born in Osaka and was brought up in a household of Japanese and Haitian culture. Quite simply, Naomi and her sister Mari have always felt Japanese so that was our only rationale. It was never a financially motivated decision nor were we ever swayed either way by any national federation."

This decision may have also been motivated by a lack of interest from the United States Tennis Association (USTA) when she was still a young player.

She was the first woman to win successive major singles titles since Serena Williams in 2015, and the first to win her first two in successive majors since Jennifer Capriati in 2001.

Osaka was born in Japan to a Haitian-American father and a Japanese mother.

She has lived and trained in the United States since age three.

Two years later, she reached her first WTA final at the 2016 Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo to enter the top 50 of the WTA rankings.

At the 2018 US Open and the 2019 Australian Open, Osaka won her first two major titles in back-to-back tournaments.

Osaka made her breakthrough into the upper echelon of women's tennis in 2018 when she won her first WTA title at the Indian Wells Open.

Later in the year, she defeated 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams in the final of the US Open to become the first Japanese player to win a major singles title.

In mid-2021, suffering from depression and other issues, Osaka retired from the French Open, dropped out of Wimbledon, and lost early at the US Open.

She closed down the rest of her tennis season to focus on family and health.

From 2018 to 2021, Osaka won a major singles title in four consecutive years, with her streak ending in 2022.

Osaka is one of the world's most marketable athletes, having been ranked eighth among all athletes in endorsement income in 2020.

She was also the highest-earning female athlete of all time by annual income that year.

Osaka has gained significant recognition as an activist, having showcased support for the Black Lives Matter movement in conjunction with her matches.

She was named one of the 2020 Sports Illustrated Sportspersons of the Year for her activism largely as part of her US Open championship run, and was also included on Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Moreover, she was the 2021 Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year.

At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, she became the first tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony.

On the court, Osaka has an aggressive playing style with a powerful serve that can reach 201 km/h.