Tennis – Former World No. 1 Naomi Osaka, of Japan, is featured on the cover of the latest issue of Wall Street Journal and she also speaks about her friendship with the late basketball legend Kobe Bryant in an interview with the magazine.
Osaka posted an update on her social media account in which she shared the cover as well as some of the pictures from the magazine shoot. “Nothing but love to @wsjmag for letting me be on their September cover.
Talked about speaking out more and the US Open among various things so if you feel like reading you should check it out”.
In the interview to Wall Street Journal, Osaka also spoke about her friendship with basketball legend Kobe Bryant, who passed away in a helicopter crash in January along with his young daughter.
“There would be some really tough losses.” “I didn’t even know he was paying attention, but he would text me positive things and tell me to learn from it. For me, it was definitely helpful.”
Earlier this week, Osaka also posted a message on social media on Bryant’s birthday.
“Happy birthday Mamba. At the US Open right now and I practiced on Armstrong so I had a lot of memories of you in my box.
That was fun, wish we could’ve done it again. Miss you.”
The 22 year old is playing the Western & Southern Open in New York this week and is through to the quarter-finals.
She has scored wins over Karolína Muchová and Dayana Yastremska this week and will meet the No. 12 seed Anett Kontaveit in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
She will then compete for the US Open Grand Slam title at the same venue – a tournament she won in 2018 over Serena Williams in the final.
Osaka and Williams are two of the four top 10 players on the WTA Tour who have entered the US Open this year – the others being reigning Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin and Czech woman Karolina Pliskova. Osaka is a former World No.
1 and two-time Grand Slam winner. She is one of the most marketable women athletes in the world and was recently named the highest-earning female athlete according to Forbes magazine in 2020 Naomi Osaka has been also making her voice heard off the court and was among several tennis players who took a stand against racism during the recent Black Lives Matter movement.
