Naomi Osaka: "I hope I can somehow inspire people"

During her career, Naomi Osaka has won five WTA titles, including two Grand Slam: the US Open 2018 and the Australian Open 2019. Following this last victory, on January 28, 2019 she reached the first place of the WTA ranking for the first time. She was the first Japanese athlete ever to win a Slam title, the third in the Open Era to qualify for the WTA Finals in 2018 and the first Asian ever to reach the top of the WTA ranking.

Starting her season at Brisbane, Osaka defeated Maria Sakkari, Sofia Kenin, and Kiki Bertens, before falling to Karolína Plíšková, despite having a match point in the second set. At the Australian Open, Osaka defeated Marie Bouzková and Zheng Saisai, before being defeated by Coco Gauff in the third round.

The former World number 1 wrote a letter to her future self for Nike. “I hope in the future, I sill retain my core values. No matter what types of trials and tribulations I face, I still remain positive. I hope I can somehow inspire people, I don’t know in what context though yet,” Osaka wrote. “Funny enough when I first started writing this I thought my brain was immediately going to write about future tennis goals, but I realize it’s much bigger than that.

I used to be extremely scared of the future because not knowing is also scary. But I realize you have to embrace the unknown and you can only control what’s happening now. So the me right now is constantly putting in full thought and effort into all the things I love. I hope the future me is doing the same."

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2TzWvTR