Kambui Bomani
Sports Writer
The world of women tennis has been dominated by the success of the Williams sisters throughout the 21st Century. Naomi Osaka is emerging as the next dominant professional tennis player.
Whether it was the early career dominance of Venus Williams, or the recent powerful surge during the prime career of her
younger sister Serena, the Williams’ sisters have left their mark on the annals of Women’s International Tennis and are destined for Hall of Fame status.
However, the most humbling aspect about an era filled with legends is that their supreme run cannot last forever.
Soon, a new wave of worldwide stars come to the forefront to shape their own careers and destiny.
In two of the last five months, a Haitian-Japanese tennis prodigy has put her mark on the recent tennis world as the next great star that the game has been graced to see.
The Australian Open Final showcased the continuous rise of Japan’s Naomi Osaka who continues to shine bright during the golden age of Serena William’s tennis playing career.
Coming off of her first Grand Slam victory against the former number one ranked Serena Williams at the U.S. Open, Osaka matched her feat with a second consecutive Grand Slam title in five months.
She finished with a 7-6 (2) 5-7, 6-4 victory against Czech Republic’s Petra Kvitova in the Australian Open Final according to the New York Times.
The result gave Osaka two straight Grand Slam titles as a 21 year old and the upcoming opportunity to be the first internationally top ranked tennis player in Japan history.
It has been a staunch rise towards stardom for Naomi who just last year at the Australian Open was ranked No.72 in the world.
As of Jan. 26, Osaka was able to receive the illustrious Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup in the on-court trophy presentation at Melbourne, Australia, from none other than retired-Chinese star, Li Na.
Na was the last highest-ranked tennis player from the continent of Asia to grace the top of world tennis rankings.
She did so by winning the 2014 Australian Open, and climbing as high as number two behind Serena Williams.
The historic accolades that are following Osaka have been ever billowing since her highly televised upstaging of Serena Williams at the U.S. Open.
To be able to replicate Grand Slam success during the same tennis year is viewed as huge; not just for her budding career, but to the state of the sport according to some of her competitors.
“Definitely she is a great one,” The New York Times reported the twenty-eight year old Petra Kvitova saying about Osaka after their match.
She continued, “We’ll see what the future will bring. But for sure she has probably everything that has to be there to play her best tennis.”
Yet, as historic as her march has been for her home country and the magnitude of a young tennis player individually, the camera-shy Osaka has made shrinking from the spotlight normality and grace in victory and defeat a humbling one for her opponent.
When asked during an American interview of the possibility of being the face of the 2020 Olympics for Tokyo, Japan, her humblest response was, “Hopefully for their sake they don’t do that.”
Yet, if her Grand Slam hardware continues its gradual incline in the next calendar year, her biggest fear of being the face of a nation could become a reality.
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