Naomi Osaka made headlines on Wednesday, August 31, 2022, when she was knocked out of the US Open in the first round by American tennis star Danielle Collins.

She was defeated 6(5)-7(7), 3-6, against Collins at the Flushing Meadows, which means this is the first time since 2017 she will end the season without a Grand Slam title.

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Who is Naomi Osaka?

Born on October 16, 1997 in, Osaka, Japan, a year later her family moved to the United States.

Her Haitian father Leonard met and married her mother Tamaki when he decamped to Japan from New York to study.

Osaka now holds dual citizenship of Japan and the United States and is a resident of Florida.

Osaka developed into a big-stage player after making her Grand Slam debut at the 2016 Australian Open.

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It took a few years to find her feet before she stunned Williams with a straight-sets victory in a controversial 2018 US Open final and backed that up with a triumph at Melbourne Park just a few months later.

Osaka, at just 21, powered to world number one but she felt unfulfilled.

“I think that also put a lot of pressure on me because I just felt in a way it was me against the world,” she said.

It led to a difficult period where she felt burdened by expectations until heeding a more relaxed demeanour.

“I used to weigh my entire existence on if I won or lost a tennis match,” she said. “That’s just not how I feel any more.”

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She became the Newcomer of the Year and entered the top-50 rankings in 2016. Followed by that, she won the US Open and became world no. 4 in 2018.

The next year, she continued her rise as she became the world no. 1. She also went on to win the Australian Open in 2019. In doing that, Osaka became one of the three players in the Open Era to emerge victorious in her first four Grand Slam finals, apart from Roger Federer and Monica Seles.

Osaka won her second US Open title in 2020 and the Australian Open in 2021.