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.

According to the Daily Mail, Maria Sharapova got a $ 400,000 engagement ring. The former Russian tennis player received the marriage proposal from her boyfriend, British businessman Alexander Gilkes, a few weeks ago. As for the jewel, it is a custom-made ring by the English precious designer Jessica McCormack.

The five-karat piece is crafted in white gold and blued silver and features an emerald inlaid with a diamond in the center. The price of the ring is $ 400,000. Maria showed her new ring in an Instagram post, which you can see below.

Maria Sharapova left tennis on 26 February 2020, aged just 32 years-old. Alexander Gilkes, her future husband, is a wealthy British businessman, co-founder of the online auction house Paddle 8 and frequent frequenter of the most exclusive aristocratic circles: he maintains a relationship with the princesses Beatriz and Eugenia, daughters of Sarah Ferguson, and is a close friend of Meghan Markle.

Maria said yes, showing the ring to her Instagram followers. Maria has won five Grand Slam tournaments and is one of the ten women’s players in history to have completed the Career Grand Slam (alongside Maureen Connolly, Doris Hart, Shirley Fry, Margaret Smith Court, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Serena Williams), milestone reached on 9 June 2012 with the victory of her first Roland Garros.

In her career, she has won a total of 36 women’s singles tournaments, including the WTA Finals in 2004 and 12 Premier category tournaments. In 2012 she was awarded the silver medal in singles at the London Olympics, in her only Olympics ever played.

Despite her numerous injuries, she has been one of the longest-lived players in the Women’s Tour, having won at least one singles tournament for thirteen consecutive years (one year less than just Steffi Graf, Martina Navrátilová and Chris Evert).

She was the highest paid female athlete in the world for 11 consecutive years from 2004 to 2015. She is also considered, together with Anna Kurnikova and Ana Ivanovic, one of the most beautiful and fashion athletes ever.

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.