While Naomi Osaka is awaiting her Western & Southern Open final against Victoria Azarenka, let’s take a minute to enjoy some super cute childhood photos of the two-time Grand Slam champion, as part of my Little Tennis Stars series, and share the story of her multi-ethnic background.
Naomi Osaka was born in 1997 in Osaka, Japan, after her parents relocated to the city from the island of Hokkaido where they met. The reason for the move was the fact that Naomi’s grandparents on her Japanese mother’s side didn’t initially accept her relationship with the man from Haiti, Leonard Francois, who visited Japan while he was a college student in New York.