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had always wanted to hug her. I know that sounds weird,’ she told the host of a TV talk show, a smile lighting up her face as she spoke about the customary post-match greeting shared by the two at the net. It seems a pity that the greatest moment of Osaka’s professional life till now will always have an unpleasant footnote, but if we give the main narrative a chance, it sparkles. Born to a Japanese mother and a Haitian father, and growing up in the US since age three, Osaka and her sister, Mari, started playing tennis at their father’s prompting. Leonard Francois had been a keen observer of Richard Williams, the father of Serena and Venus, and decided to give tennis parenting a shot himself after watching the two beaming American teenagers pose with the doubles trophy at the 1999 French Open. After moving to her grandmother’s place on Long Island with the family, Naomi and Mari were made to knock around thousands of balls a day under their father’s supervision. Naomi’s motivations at the time were slightly different from what they are now. “I don’t remember liking to hit the ball,” 42
Naomi told the New York Times in an interview. “The main thing was that I wanted to beat my sister.” She would lose with an unkind 6-0 scoreline almost every time they played. “For her, it wasn’t a competition, but for me, every day was. Every day I’d say, ‘I’m going to beat you tomorrow.’” Eventually, she did beat Mari 6-2— after many hours of tennis. This was possibly her first lesson on the sweet rewards of perseverance. When things got more serious on the tennis front, the Osakas moved to Florida for advanced training, starting off at public courts before graduating to academy tennis. Despite living in the US and showing early promise, the United States Tennis Association did not express much of an interest in backing Naomi, and so her father made the decision that she and her sister would play with ‘JPN’ against their names. Deciding to give the junior circuit a skip altogether and starting off on the ITF Challenge Circuit—a route also followed by the Williams—Naomi’s initial run reads like just another set of numbers on the tough uphill climb endured by all tennis players. Qualifiers, doubles, Challengers,
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and taking the positives from every defeat—especially the ones to her sister—dotted her journey. She did not manage to stay unbeaten in any tournament on the ITF tour, but did finish runner-up four times. When she reunited with her estranged Japanese family (who had initially disapproved her mother’s marriage to Francois), they couldn’t believe that there was all this talk of playing the sport as a profession. True, that was a reflection of the traditionalism enmeshed in Japan’s social structure rather than a comment on Naomi’s talent, but as an indicator of the immense fortitude needed to soldier on on the brutal tennis circuit, it was a reality check. The Osakas, though, stuck to the climb. In 2016, Naomi notched up a few professional milestones. Starting with her first time in a Slam main draw after qualification into the Australian Open, where she beat world no. 21 Elena Svitolina. After another notable win over no. 18 Sara Errani at the Miami Open, she made it into the WTA top 100. However, her clay and grass results were patchy at best— while she did manage a couple of clay-court wins, she did not play any
