Early Life and Family
Naomi Osaka started playing tennis at the age of 3. She grew up in the United States but holds Japanese citizenship and represents Japan on the court (her mother is from Japan, her father from Haiti). Osaka boasts a 120 mile per hour serve, was the first Japanese player to win a Grand Slam title, and became the first Asian tennis player to hold the world's No. 1 rank.
Osaka was born in Osaka City, Osaka, Japan, on October 16, 1997. Her parents, Leonard Maxime Francois and Tamaki Osaka, met in Sapporo, Japan, in the 1990s. When Tamaki's family learned she was involved with a Haitian man they deemed the relationship a disgrace, but Tamaki and Francois went on to marry. The couple moved to the city of Osaka, where Osaka was born in 1997, 18 months after older sister, Mari. The girls were given their mother's last name to try to make life in Japan easier.
After seeing Venus and Serena Williams at the French Open in 1999 and learning how their father had trained them, Francois was inspired to follow a similar path with his daughters. When Osaka was 3 her family left Japan for the United States. They settled in Long Island with her father's parents, and she and her sister began playing tennis. In 2006 the family moved to Florida, where the girls practiced tennis during the day with their father. In New York they'd attended public school but now they were homeschooled at night. Osaka's mother worked to support the family during this time.
