In the past 12 months, Naomi Osaka has catapulted to new heights.

After storming onto the scene in 2018 with her U.S. Open win over Serena Williams and a grand slam win in Australia, Osaka hasn’t looked back.

She made history in 2019 when she set an all-time earnings record for a female athlete in a single year. Osaka made a total of $37.4 million from prize money and endorsements, $1.4 million more than Williams and high enough for her to rank 29th among the 100 highest-paid athletes.

Then 2020, with all of its highs and lows, turned into a banner year for the star. Osaka began to use her platform more to advocate for racial justice, pulling out of an event in Cincinnati and wearing masks in New York that highlighted the names of seven Black victims of police shootings.

The 23-year-old earned $55.2 million last year, according to Sportico, with $5.2 million in winnings and $50 million in endorsements. That total set a new record for female athletes, besting her own from 2019. Her earnings in off-court endorsements matched those of Cristiano Ronaldo and were topped only by Roger Federer, LeBron James and Tiger Woods.

Osaka is the second highest-paid tennis player on Sportico’s list of the top 100 athlete earners, just behind Federer who took home $84 million in 2020. The next highest female athlete on the list is Serena Williams, who sits at 44 with a $35.5 million payday.

The four-time Grand Slam champion will look to continue the clay season with a win at the French Open this week. Meanwhile, off the court, Osaka continues to dominate the fashion scene as co-chair of the Met Gala.

Serena Williams saw victory once again Monday.

The 23-time Grand Slam champion beat 17-year-old qualifier Lisa Pigato 6-3,6-2 in the first round of the Emilia-Romagna Open.

Williams accepted a wild-card invitation for the Parma tournament after dropping her opening match at the Italian Open last week. There, Williams lost in straight sets to Nadia Podoroska during her 1000th match. 

It’s Williams’ first win since beating Simona Halep in the Australian Open quarterfinals in February. She was then eliminated by Naomi Osaka in the semifinals.

Williams continues to prepare for Roland Garros, the year’s next Grand Slam, which starts in two weeks. Williams will next face 68th-ranked Katerina Siniakova, who eliminated Danish teenager Clara Tauson 6-1, 6-3. 

 

American tennis player Sofia Kenin announced on Instagram that she would no longer be coached by her father.

The 22-year-old said she is putting together a new team ahead of this month’s French Open.

Currently No. 4 in the WTA rankings and 2020’s French Open runner-up, Kenin will hope to replicate last year’s success at the upcoming Grand Slam with a new coach by her side.

Fifth seed Aryna Sabalenka bested No. 1 seed Ashleigh Barty to capture the Mutua Madrid Open championship.

Sabalenka won 6-0, 3-6, 6-4,  nabbing her second title of the year and her first ever on clay.

The upset ended Barty’s domination on dirt and propelled Sabalenka to her 10th career title.

The Met Gala has returned after a one-year hiatus, and Naomi Osaka has been named a co-chair.

Other hosts include Timothée Chalamet, Billie Eilish and Amanda Gorman.

In the announcement, Vogue called Osaka “one of the best-dressed athletes around,” citing the colorful pieces she wears on and off the court. 

The theme of the Met Gala will be the “Ultimate Tribute to American Style,” with Vogue stating that each of the four cohosts “embodies the defining factor of American style: individualism.”

“They may approach the concept differently,” the article states. “But their shared passion for expressing themselves through clothing connects with the exhibition’s theme.”

Naturally, Osaka responded as anyone would.

It’s been a big 24 hours for Osaka, as news comes on the heels of the announcement that her Play Academy, first launched in Japan last summer, will be expanding to two new locations: Los Angeles, California and Haiti. Created in a partnership with Nike and Laureus Sport for Good, the Academy provides grants and capacity-building training for local community organizations in an effort to boost girls’ access to and participation in sport.

Canadian tennis star Bianca Andreescu has been forced to withdraw from the Madrid Open after revealing Sunday that she tested positive for COVID-19.

In a post on Twitter, Andreescu said that prior to traveling to Madrid she had two negative tests. Upon arrival, she found out a third test had come back positive. 

“I am feeling good, I am resting, and continuing to follow the health protocols and safety guidelines,” Andreescu wrote. “I look forward to getting back on the court very soon.”

Andreescu returned to competition in February of this year after suffering from a torn meniscus a month after winning the U.S. Open in 2019. Earlier this month, she exited the Miami Open final against world number one Ash Barty in tears following a tumble on the court that led to an injured foot.

For die-hard Serena Williams fans, the desire to see her win her 24th Grand Slam is equally understandable and unrelenting. We want it so badly we can barely stand to watch, and some of us don’t watch out of fear that we’ve been jinxing her.

Despite having seen her win 23 before, we’re now totally enthralled with the prospect of just one more. It may seem unreasonable, but at this point, we’re past logic. No championship matters more than Serena getting 24.

If we were rational, we would be appeased by the fact that No. 24 is only a meaningless technicality. Serena is already the GOAT. And yet… she’s not the current record holder for individual Grand Slam titles. That claim belongs to Margaret Court and her 24.

Now, there is a stack of SCOTUS-worthy arguments as to why Court’s career is in no way comparable to our 21st century queen. For starters, the bulk of Court’s career occurred before the Open Era (when the Grand Slams were only open to amateurs), and almost half of her titles were earned at the Australian Open during the 60s and early 70s, when the tournament wasn’t nearly as prestigious and didn’t draw many of the world’s top players.

Nearly all tennis analysts, historians, and commentators agree that it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. And while no one is trying to diminish the still-very-impressive career of Margaret Court, her personal beliefs have increasingly tainted her historical record. A born-again Christian Minister, Court has been very vocal about her anti-LGBTQ views. If Serena caught her (asterisk-marked) record, there would be an extra layer of icing on that cake for progressive-minded fans.

One of the main reasons the quest for No. 24 has become an obsession for many isn’t that it would be number 24, but that it would actually be No. 1—Serena’s first Grand Slam title since becoming a mom.

After winning the 2017 Australian Open while eight weeks pregnant, Serena gave birth to her now three-year-old daughter, Olympia, in September of that year. Her emergency cesarean, followed by a near-fatal pulmonary embolism, forced her into a long, slow recovery, one whose difficulties Serena has openly discussed.

Any athlete or sports fan who is also a parent knows that Serena’s quest to return to the highest pinnacle of her sport is a whole new endeavor, one that is a thousand times more challenging than anything she’s attempted before. And the insanely impressive thing is how close she has repeatedly come to reaching it.

Ten months (ten months!) after the harrowing birth of her daughter, Serena fought her way to the finals of Wimbledon in 2018 only to lose to Angelique Kerber. A few months later, she reached the finals of the US Open, losing that time to the then up-and-coming Naomi Osaka.

In 2019, she reached the finals of both Wimbledon and the US Open once again but didn’t come away with either title. In 2020, the cursed year that it was, Serena didn’t reach a Grand Slam finals match for the first time since 2006. (Granted, Wimbledon wasn’t held so the chances were fewer.) In the last two Grand Slam events Serena has lost in the semi-finals. The latest defeat came a couple weeks ago at the Australian Open, once again at the hands of the now established and dominant Osaka.

It’s easy to look at Serena’s finishes since 2017 and see a picture of a champion who came so incredibly close to that No. 24, but who’s chances get slimmer with each passing month as she approaches her 40th birthday (gasp). But what we’re really looking at is evidence of a mind-boggling accomplishment. Reaching four Grand Slam finals in the first two years after Olympia was born at the ages of 37 and 38 may be a more impressive achievement than any single title of her career.

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Logically and rationally, we know she doesn’t need No. 24. Serena is already the GOAT, full stop.

Unfortunately, we are not fully logical and rational beings. (We’re sports fans, after all.) And so we still want to see her reach that pinnacle again. And at this point, we don’t even care how she gets it. We don’t care if the field is stacked in her favor, if her opponent drops out mid-match due to injury, if a stomach bug ravages the entire tournament and she is the only one left standing. She doesn’t need to earn it, because in our mind, she already has.

Now we just want the hardware to prove it. We want it wrapped up in a velvet box and tied with a silky ribbon. Throw in a token of appreciation handed to her on a silver platter, with a note that reads, “Here you go Serena. You deserve to have this. Thank you for all you are and all you have done.” Throw in a second velvet box with No. 25 in it, and maybe, just maybe, her devoted supporters will finally have some peace of mind.