Paris: Twelve months ago at Roland Garros, an embarrassed Naomi Osaka bristled at being hailed as the coolest thing in tennis. Now, however, the 21-year-old Japanese returns to Paris as comfortably the sport’s hottest ticket with the world number one billing, a bank balance bursting at the seams and on the brink of a third successive Grand Slam title. “The one word that comes to my mind is amazing,” says Osaka’s older sister Mari, a fellow tour player. “I’m really proud of her.” Naomi Osaka was seeded at a Grand Slam for the first time at the 2018 French Open when she made the third round, countering claims she was the coolest thing in tennis by asserting she was the sport’s ‘most awkward person’.
But it was the razzle-dazzle of New York, helped by a mega-meltdown by Serena Williams, which propelled her to a maiden Slam triumph in September. That was backed up by a second major at the Australian Open, her status as the face of the new generation of women’s tennis comfortably confirmed. Osaka, the daughter of a Haitian father and Japanese mother, has since been signed up by Nike in a deal reportedly worth in the region of USD 10 million a year. Despite being based full-time in the United States and still often struggling with the Japanese language, sponsors from home have come calling, from an airline and car-maker to a noodle company and detergent manufacturer.
In Japan, her coy personality and breezy news conferences have made her into a media darling. Naomi-speak was among the most searched phrases online in 2018. “She’s multicultural, multinational, multiracial,” Stuart Duguid, Osaka’s agent and an IMG executive, told Britain’s Financial Times. However, fame still sits uncomfortably with Osaka whose career earnings have already rocketed past the USD 11 million mark.
