Tennis pro Naomi Osaka has been serving killer aces and newsworthy zingers for years.
From her childhood spent training alongside her older sister to her ascent to tennis superstardom,
this is the evolution of Naomi Osaka.
Naomi Osaka was born on October 16, 1997, and she shares her surname with her birthplace: Osaka, Japan.
Naomi's father, Leonard Francois, was born in Haiti, and her mother, Tamaki Osaka, was
born and raised in Hokkaido, Japan.
When the two met in the 90s, they moved to Osaka, Japan, where Naomi was born and grew
up alongside her sister, Mari.
Stuart Duguid, Naomi's agent at I.M.G., reflected on his client's biracial status to the New
York Times in 2018, saying,
“When I look 15 years into the future, I see Naomi having a great tennis career, perhaps
even with Grand Slam titles, but I also hope that she’s changed cultural perceptions
of multiracial people in Japan.
I hope she’s opened the door for other people to follow, not just in tennis or sports, but
for all of society.”
Naomi Osaka wasn't even 2 years old when her father tuned into the 1999 French Open on
a night that would change the toddler's destiny.
It was that night that Francois watched Venus and Serena Williams, 17 and 18 years old at
the time, defeat Martina Hingis and Anna Kournikova.
As he explained to The New York Times in 2018, Francois knew little about tennis at the competitive
level, but he took inspiration from Richard Williams, Venus and Serena's father, who coached
the sisters even without tennis experience of his own.
Francois said,
"The blueprint was already there.
I just had to follow it."
When Naomi was 3, the family left for the United States and moved in with Francois'
parents on Long Island.
Francois started training his girls on the local tennis courts - learning about the sport
from books and DVDs - and Mari and Naomi hit hundreds or even thousands of balls each day
as they practiced.
"He's annoyed me so much that it just makes me angry.
I use the anger as a fuel to win."
Naomi later recalled growing up surrounded by both Haitian and Japanese culture.
The family spent five years on Long Island, with young Naomi hearing Japanese from her
mother and Haitian Creole from her grandparents.
As Leonard Francois trained daughters Mari and Naomi Osaka in tennis, Naomi was focused
less on hitting the ball and more on defeating her older sister.
But for 12 years, Mari often reigned victorious over the future No. 1 tennis champ.
As Naomi explained to the New York Times,
"For her, it wasn't a competition, but for me, every day was a competition.
Every day I'd say, 'I'm going to beat you tomorrow.'"
In an open "love letter" to her younger sister published in Glamour in 2020, Mari reflected
on the time that Naomi finally started beating her, writing,
"I remember you made this face - the most annoying face in the world - that made me
want to punch you.
But it's cool.
I'll get you again."
In 2006, Francois and Tamaki Osaka moved the family to the city of Pembroke Pines, Florida,
where Naomi and Mari would train on public courts during the day and be home-schooled at night.
Following in Venus and Serena Williams' footsteps, Mari and Naomi Osaka started vying off against
older players on pro satellite tours, but they didn't get much attention from the United
States Tennis Association, according to The New York Times.
So, their father, Leonard Francois, decided that Mari and Naomi would play for Japan instead
of the United States, starting from when they were 13.
Naomi didn't seem as gifted as Mari at first, but now, Naomi's tennis career has taken off
as Mari has struggled to play through a shoulder injury.
Mari still competes on the USTA pro circuit, and she's currently ranked No. 335 in the
world, according to WTA.
Naomi Osaka scored her first tour-level win - and made international news - at age 16
when she beat former U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur in the 2014 Bank of the West Classic
in Stanford, California.
Osaka clinched the victory with a 120 mph serve, as Sports Illustrated reported at the time.
The then-teenager told reporters after the match,
"It's probably the second best win of my life, probably.
First being when I first beat my sister.
I was like, 'Yeah, in your face.'"
Japanese media celebrated the news of Osaka's victory, according to The New York Times,
and her maternal grandfather - who'd previously criticized Osaka's tennis training and home-schooling
- took notice.
Over the years, he has become supportive of her athletic ambitions, even sending her a
small silk pouch for good luck, a gift Osaka then hung from her tennis bag.
At the 2018 U.S. Open, 20-year-old Naomi Osaka defeated Madison Keys in the U.S. Open semifinals,
telling ESPN after the match that she was thinking about the prospect of playing Serena Williams the whole time.
But the finals match between Osaka and Williams turned out to be an emotional game for both athletes.
During the match, the chair umpire issued Williams a point penalty after she smashed
a racket against the court, and later awarded Osaka a game after Williams referred to him
as a thief over the call.
Osaka ultimately won the match - becoming the first Japanese player ever to win a Grand Slam title.
But instead of exulting in her victory, the champion sobbed as she faced a booing crowd.
Later, she cried again on the podium as she accepted her trophy.
"Good evening everyone, and we welcome you to the trophy celebration of the United States Open."
Williams tried defending Osaka, saying,
"I just want to tell you guys she played well.
This is her first Grand Slam [...] Let's not boo anymore."
When it was her turn at the mic, Osaka apologized to the audience for her victory, saying,
"I'm sorry it had to end like this."
In 2019, Naomi Osaka scored her second Grand Slam championship when she defeated Petra
Kvitová at the Australian Open in Melbourne, Australia.
In doing so, the then-21-year-old Osaka became the first Asian tennis athlete - male or female
- to be ranked No. 1 in the world.
Retired Chinese tennis player Li Na, the first Asian player to win a Grand Slam, was on hand
to present the trophy to Osaka.
After her victory, Osaka said she was honored to play in the championship, and also commended
Kvitová, saying she always wanted to play the Czech athlete.
Naomi Osaka's boyfriend is Cordae Amari Dunston, better known as the rapper and two-time Grammy nominee Cordae.
A March 2021 GQ cover story revealed that the couple met two years prior and went on
their first date at a Los Angeles Clippers game.
At first, Cordae didn't even know she was a tennis star, as he explained, and he attended
his first tennis match when he watched her compete in the 2019 U.S. Open.
In the interview, Cordae said he introduced Osaka to the work of Stevie Wonder, Marvin
Gaye, and Gil Scott-Heron, but observed that she has a "good ear" for music on her own.
In fact, he even plays his own work-in-progress music for her -- not that he wanted to right off the bat.
As Osaka put it,
"He had to warm up to me, and I had to do a lot of pleases.
'Please, sir, can I just please listen to your song?'...
He's a perfectionist, and I think that's sort of what I am, too.
So maybe that's why we get along."
Osaka also said that Cordae helped her win the 2020 U.S. Open title when he flew to New
York to be with her during her pre-tournament quarantine.
In 2020, days after George Floyd was killed by police, Naomi Osaka and boyfriend Cordae
flew to Minneapolis to join the peaceful protests in the city; she wrote in a subsequent essay
for "Esquire" that it "felt right" to be on the ground there.
She also withdrew from a scheduled match at the 2020 Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati,
Ohio, as part of nationwide athlete protests against racial injustice and police brutality.
As she wrote on Twitter at the time,
"Before I am an athlete, I am a Black woman."
At her matches during the U.S. Open later that year, Osaka wore face masks bearing the
names of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tamir Rice, and other people whose deaths have exposed
violent racism in American society.
And in video messages that were broadcast on ESPN, the father of Ahmaud Arbery and the
mother of Trayvon Martin thanked Osaka for her activism and for honoring their children
with her platform.
In response to those messages, Osaka said,
"It's not going to dull the pain, but hopefully, I can help with anything that they need."
At just 22 years old, Naomi Osaka became the highest-paid female athlete ever after earning
$37.4 million from prize money and endorsements across a 12-month span, as Forbes reported in 2020
The ranking ended Serena Williams' four-year streak as the highest-paid female athlete,
though Williams did join Osaka as the only two women on Forbes' list of that year's 100
highest-paid athletes.
The magazine listed some of Osaka's lucrative endorsement deals - including agreements with
Nike, Procter & Gamble, Nissan Motor, and many more - and noted that branding-wise,
she's a hot commodity ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
David Carter, a sports business professor at USC's Marshall School of Business, spoke
about Osaka's brand appeal to Forbes, saying,
"To those outside the tennis world, Osaka is a relatively fresh face with a great backstory.
Combine that with being youthful and bicultural, two attributes that help her resonate with
younger, global audiences, and the result is the emergence of a global sports marketing icon."
In 2021, Osaka announced another business move on Instagram, telling fans that she'd
become the newest brand ambassador for Louis Vuitton.
In 2020, Naomi Osaka shared the news that she'd inspired a character in the manga magazine
Nakayoshi, a character that would appear in a series called "Unrivaled Naomi Tenkaichi".
Better yet, her sister, Mari Osaka, was involved in the creation of the character, as BBC News reported.
Naomi tweeted at the time,
"Growing up reading manga / [and] watching anime was something that bonded me and my
sister immensely, so this is really exciting for both of us."
Roland Kelts, a visiting professor of culture, media, and society at Tokyo's Waseda University,
told BBC News that a half-Haitian, half-Japanese manga character - and one based on an admired
and accomplished athlete - marked a, quote,"major leap forward in manga cultural awareness and
representation," especially because the biracial manga characters who do make it to the printed
page are typically half-white and half-Japanese.
Naomi Osaka befriended the late Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant after her agent introduced
them to one another.
She told Vogue in 2020 that Bryant taught her to remain resilient through tough times;
as she recalled him saying,
"If you keep going, you'll get the result - or you might not get the result, but you'll
get an opportunity to get the result."
Osaka also paid tribute to Bryant in a GQ interview, saying of the basketball legend,
"He was someone that, no matter how busy he was, for some reason he always picked up the
phone when I called him."
"It's really rare to have a sporting icon that's so loved and so universal across all
the sports, and I know that everyone really loved and appreciated him."
After beating Serena Williams in the Australian Open semifinals in 2021, Osaka donned a Los Angeles Lakers sweater.
According to ESPN, she told reporters that she wore it because she "needed some extra
strength" that day.
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