Celebrity：Naomi Osaka
【明報專訊】．Name: Naomi Osaka
．Age: 22
In 2012, her top ranking among female players' as reported by the Women's Tennis Association, was 1016. In early-2019, she rose to the top of the world. She is Naomi Osaka, a young, promising and aggressive tennis new star. Currently, she is ranked third among female players.
Upon her first victory in the grand slam final in US Open in 2018, she became the first Japanese player to win a grand slam final singles title. Osaka won her second U.S. Open title in 2020.
Osaka was born in Japan but raised in the US. She was born to a Japanese mother and a Haitian(海地人) father. Due to her strong connection with Japan, Osaka and her father decided that she would be playing under a Japanese flag rather than an American flag on the WTA Tour.
◆''I'm a daughter, a sister, a friend and a girlfriend. I'm Asian, I'm black and I'm female. I'm as normal a 22-year-old as anyone, except I happen to be good at tennis. I've accepted myself as just me: Naomi Osaka.''——Naomi Osaka
■Gear up
1. She is the first Japanese tennis player to win in the US Open. (True/False)
2. Osaka was raised in Japan.
(True/False)
(Answers on next text)
■English highway﹕Rather than
When you prefer one thing to another.
e.g. It would be better to travel by bus rather than by train.
◆Photo story
In 2018, Osaka suffered from a back injury in Beijing and was forced to withdraw from the Hong Kong Open 2018. Nevertheless, she still flew to Hong Kong to meet with local fans.
■Glossary
aggressive (adj) 進取的
currently (adv) 目前
connection (n) 聯繫
nevertheless (adv) 不過
[Smarties' Power English 第287期]
