Naomi Osaka is spending her lockdown with her boyfriend YBN Cordae. They enjoy a fantastic relationship that was (sort of) officialized roughly 1 year ago on social media. Naomi’s boyfriend is a rather well-known American rapper and she loves supporting him as much as she can.

Nevertheless, the former world no.1 rarely misses the opportunity to make some fun of the people she loves. Last week, she posted an entertaining video about her father on social media. Now it’s YBN Cordae’s turn with Naomi explaining the huge difference in how he is perceived by his fans and how she sees him.

Naomi Osaka is on top of the tennis world right now with a dominating semifinal performance against Serena Williams, an Australian Open trophy in her hands and a fourth consecutive Grand Slam title in four tries, an unmatched feat.

At 23 years old, she has potentially decades of tennis in front of her and is seen as the heir apparent to Williams’ throne when the 23-time Grand Slam winner retires from the sport.

But Osaka doesn’t view her ultimate achievement in terms of Grand Slams or trophies or money earned.

Osaka’s ‘odd’ achievement she wants to see
Her biggest achievement would come if years from now we see a match play out similarly to what we’ve seen from Osaka vs. Williams over the past handful of years.

"Hopefully I play long enough to play a girl that said I was once her favourite player."@naomiosaka is winning Grand Slams and inspiring tennis stars of the future 💙✨#AusOpen | #AO2021 pic.twitter.com/BaYA3JkZhx

— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) February 20, 2021

She shared what she wants to see after defeating Jennifer Brady in the 2021 Australian Open final on Saturday.

“I feel like the biggest thing I want to achieve is — this is going to sound really odd. Hopefully I play long enough to play a girl that said that I was once her favorite player or something. For me, I think that’s the coolest thing that could ever happen to me. I think I have those feelings of watching my favorite players. Unfortunately I didn’t get to play Li Na, but, yeah. I just think that that’s how the sport moves forward.”

Li is a former Chinese tennis player who reached No. 2 in the world in February 2014 after winning the Australian Open. She also has a Grand Slam victory at Roland Garros in 2011. Li was the first Grand Slam singles champion from Asia in either the men’s or women’s game and was the first player representing Asia to even compete in a Grand Slam final. She retired in September of 2014 at the age of 32 and was inducted in 2019 to the International Tennis Hall of Fame, again the first Asian-born player to do so.

Osaka does get to play Williams

Osaka, who was born in Japan, turned professional in September of 2013 and while she didn’t get to face her favorite player, she has faced Williams, a competitor she’s called her “idol.” The two are 16 years apart and some look at Osaka as the legacy Williams leaves behind, the same way Osaka said facing a favorite player is how the sport moves forward.

Their semifinal showed that, with Williams taking an early lead but Osaka storming back to prime form and dismantling the tennis queen with an almost easy stride.

Williams turns 40 this year and there are questions about the end of her career, though she admitted she’d never tell anyone if it were the end. Osaka was asked after the win if things had begun to shift so that Williams is no longer the face of tennis, and rather Osaka is now it.

“No. Not at all,” she said in her shortest answer of a reflective 37-minute news conference.

But she will be soon, pushing the sport forward for another round.

In an interesting interview to the Swiss TV channel SRF, the world no. 2 Roger Federer spoke about his wife Mirka Vavrinec, to whom he got married in 2009. Mirka was a former tennis player, she achieved a career-high ranking at no.

76 in 2001 and retired from tennis in 2002. Mirka achieved her best Grand Slam result at the 2001 US Open reaching the third round. Federer sometimes goes to tournaments alone and it’s not an ideal situation for him. ‘She is my wife,’ the 36-year-old explained.

‘It’s not good without her. It’s that simple. She is always there for me, in the good and bad times. She is naturally more focused on the children than on my tennis. Sometimes she doesn’t even know who I am going to be playing against.

I call her after the match and she asks, “Did you win?” She knows tennis inside out and she knows me really well. So she knows when I am feeling okay or not. She also knows that it takes to have success. That’s why she is precious, and my team knows that too.’ In April, Federer and Mirka attended a Rolex event in Dubai, where they live in the winter.

They also took a picture together with some of the brand owners. Federer, who lost in the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, will be playing the US Open series next.