Do we like Naomi Osaka?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Years of speaking up for racial justice and funding girls' sport, with a couple of prickly moments and no harmful words found.
Naomi Osaka was born in Osaka, Japan, to a Japanese mother and a Haitian father. The family moved to the US when she was about three, settling on Long Island and later Florida. She chose to keep her Japanese citizenship and play for Japan, and she has won four Grand Slam singles titles: the US Open in 2018 and 2020, and the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021.
The big stoush this year was at the Australian Open in January. After beating Sorana Cirstea in round two, Osaka brushed off the Romanian's complaints about her shouting between serves with a dismissive line on court. At her press conference she walked it back, saying her first comments were “disrespectful”, while Cirstea herself called it a five-second exchange with no drama. A quick apology and a shrug from the other side is a fair way to handle a heat-of-the-moment crack.
The Paris dinner got louder. Osaka and Townsend hosted a dinner at Soho House for Black players, with guests including Coco Gauff, and some online critics objected that it was closed to others. Osaka said it was a celebration, not exclusion, and told critics she loves everyone no matter their race. Where you land depends on whether you read it as a private party among peers or as a closed door, but nothing in it demeans anyone.
On the harm check, the record is clean as far as we could find. In 2020 she wore a different mask at each of her seven US Open matches, each carrying the name of a Black person who had been killed, and said she wanted to start people talking. We found nothing from her on trans people, vaccines or the climate, so that part of the file is thin rather than reassuring or damning. We found no sign of her platforming anyone who pushes harm.
Not everything is a halo. A former trainer sued her and her family in Florida in 2019 over a share of lifetime earnings, and a judge dismissed the suit. In December 2025 she announced she was leaving Evolve, the sports agency she co-founded in 2022, with Ben Rothenberg first reporting the news. It reads like a business split, not a scandal.
The good stuff is real. She launched Play Academy with Nike and Laureus Sport for Good to get more girls into sport, starting in Tokyo and expanding to Los Angeles and Haiti, where it works with GOALS Haiti. When a major earthquake hit Haiti in August 2021, she pledged her Western & Southern Open prize money to relief. That is a long way from a trophy-and-endorsement athlete.