NAOMI OSAKA takes Centre Stage

In 2014, at the Bank of the West Classic tour event in California, a shy sixteen-year-old HaitianAmerican-Japanese tennis player espies her idol from afar but is too shy to approach her for a chat. They are both competitors at the tournament, playing for the same prize, but their worlds are so far apart that any possibility of collision seems like a distant possibility. She agonizes about a possible meeting, then about the fact that the American may get to know about her fandom and consider it ‘creepy’, but eventually gets a keepsake: a selfie with her.

That particular WTA tournament was, in a sense, a first look at Osa ka’s potential—and her monster forehand. The latter played a starring role in the 406-ranked player’s win over Tour veteran and former US Open champion Samantha Stosur— ranked No. 19 at the time—achieved after saving a match point, no less. It was also her first appearance in a WTA main draw, gained after coming through the qualifiers. These facts did make many take note of her as one to watch out for even back then, but it’s her 6-2, 6-4 2018 US Open victory against 23-time Grand Slam champi on Serena that will be the headlining act for some time to come. Unfortunately, it was under extremely unsavoury circumstances, and led to copious tears being spilled from Osaka’s eyes during the presentation ceremony, prompting Serena to reprimand the crowd. A questionable line call, an unclear code violation, and a raging former champion spewing invective—you couldn’t make this stuff up.

At one of the umpteen interviews lined up for the new young Slam winner, Osaka made it clear that witnessing her idol’s fury in the heat of the moment hadn’t taken away any of the adoration. ‘Serena told me some stuff and I hugged her . . . I

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,”

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,

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

matches on grass after suffering an injury at her debut French Open. On returning to the circuit in July, she put up a series of steady performances before her breakthrough at a venue where she would have felt right at home: the Pan Pacific Open at Tokya—her first appearance in a WTA final. Among her scalps was no. 22 Dominika Cibulkova and no. 20 Svitolina, and she also earned a slice of Japanese history, becoming the first home player to make the final since Kimiko Date in 1995. Even though she couldn’t get past her final opponent Caroline Wozniacki, she had made a place for herself in the top 50, opening doors to higher ranking opportunities and picking up the WTA Newcomer of the Year award.

2017 was considerably less populated with such highlights, but Naomi did manage to register two top-10 victories: over Angelique Kerber and Venus Williams at the US Open and Hong Kong Open respectively. Nevertheless, the slightest of hints at stagnancy prompted her to hire professional support, in the form of Serena’s former hitting partner Sascha Bajin. The decision showed immediate results—at her second tournament since bringing him on board, she put in her career-best Slam performance at the 2018 Australian Open.

Since ending his eight-year stint with Serena in 2015, Bajin’s other coaching assignments—with Victoria Azarenka, Sloane Stephens and Caroline Wozniacki—were shorter than he would have liked. He had almost made up his mind to give up the life of a travelling coach, but the trial sessions he had with Naomi intrigued him. “. . . the last three times things ended a little bit too quick for me,” Bajin said in an interview on the official WTA website. “I believe in longevity and that if you work with someone for a longer period of time you can work more efficiently. You

Photo: Susan Mullane/Camerawork USA, Inc

know them better. It’s just a more intimate thing. The beautiful thing of working with Naomi is that you don’t have to keep her motivated too much because she really enjoys it. It’s not that I have to push her to the court. It’s more actually of her slowing her down and keeping her grounded.”

Bajin added that Naomi was often too hard on herself. “She’s such a perfectionist that she just gets down on herself. So I have to be the contrast. If she’s too negative and too down then I have to go and say it’s OK. The world is round, the grass is green, everything is all right.”

After her 2018 win, Naomi spoke about the toll that pro tennis can take on mental health. “You can easily get depressed. Usually, if you play sports, you think that one match or one game is very important, and when you lose it, you think your whole world is over. I can see how easily that can turn . . . I call my sister, and she starts talking about random stuff to distract me,” she told Teen Vogue.

The mindfulness of the gracious champion is on display even on court—she is not given to overtly emotional responses, even if there are scenes of chaos around her. At the post-match press conference at Flushing Meadows, she spoke about

her composed walk to the net to be congratulated by her opponent. “I was just thinking, I don’t know, like to have a huge reaction isn’t really me in the first place. It just still didn’t really feel that real. So for me it just felt like a normal match just walking up to the net. But it’s Serena on the other side . . . it was really awesome.” Since 9 September 2018, it has been a given that any mention of Naomi Osaka’s name will have another tagged on: that of her idol, Serena Williams.

The unfortunate circumstances that cemented this fact, though, should not be the legacy that the tennis player leaves behind. Doubtless there are greater victories in her future but for now she’s enjoying herself, and fans should enjoy her.

Whether it’s her endearing embarrassment at talk show host Ellen Degeneres tagging a shirtless photo of Michael B. Jordan on her social media account (Naomi later played down her love of the actor) or her discreet superstitions (“I always have to put my right shoe on first, and all my racquets have to be on a certain side of my bag”), Osaka is a personality who could take the WTA Tour into the twenty-first century.