Tennis has shown its two faces in the Osaka family: that of success, highlighted in the figure of Naomi Osaka with her recent victory at the Australian Open, and that of the difficulty of gaining a place in the elite of sport as shown by the trajectory of his sister Mari.
At 24, the sister of the four-time Grand Slam champion announced her retirement as a professional tennis player. Mari Osaka, who was ranked 340 in the WTA ranking (it became number 280 in May 2018) the racket comes out after a career in which he has mainly attended tournaments on the ITF circuit and with a balance of 218 victories by 173 defeats.
With a photo of the sea, Mari Osaka announced her farewell to tennis on social networks. “I have retired as a tennis player. It has been a journey that I have not enjoyed very much but I am very grateful for all the memories and support that I have received during the years that I have been in the sport. I am moving on now for fun new projects in the future. “
Naomi Osaka herself, who already joked about her sister after going to the Australian Open final (“Mari, stop sending weird images through the chat group”) has highlighted the role that Mari has played in becoming the tennis player she is today. “For me the most important thing was to give back to my family everything they have done for me. Until I was 15 years old, she beat me on the balance sheet 6-0. It was ridiculous. I don't know what happened or what clicked in my head, but I'm sure she beat me well. In our matches she will have beaten me a million times or something like that, “she told the New York Times in 2019. Now Osaka will continue to add successes, although without her sister on the circuit.