Naomi Osaka: Her Journey to Finding Her Power and Her Voice

by Ben Rothenberg

Overview

A deeply reported, revealing biography of tennis phenomenon and activist Naomi Osaka, telling the untold story behind her Grand Slam-winning career, her headline-making advocacy for racial justice and mental health, and the challenges of a life in the international spotlight.

Naomi Osaka is everywhere, but how did she get there?

Most tennis fans were introduced to Naomi Osaka as they watched her win the 2018 US Open final in an unforgettably controversial and dramatic victory over her idol, Serena Williams. Since then, Osaka has galvanized the tennis world—and gained attention across the culture—not only by winning three more Grand Slams, but by finding her voice.

Her extraordinary talent and unique blend of power and vulnerability have propelled her to the top of her sport and onto the front page of newspapers and magazines worldwide. She became the highest-paid female athlete in history and one of the most discussed, at the cultural crossroads on myriad social issues.

But until now, the story of the Haitian Japanese American Osaka family’s journey across the world to follow their tennis dreams—and how their youngest daughter found her power off the court—has remained little known. It is a story unlike any other, and Ben Rothenberg’s biography not only shows where Osaka came from but also where she's going as she returns to competitive tennis after a year on maternity leave. Through a riveting exploration of the ways Osaka has changed the game on and off the court, Rothenberg details the incredible impact Osaka has had in the arenas of sports, media, business, social justice, and mental health.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593472439
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/09/2024
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	162,133
Product dimensions:	6.24(w) x 9.28(h) x 1.62(d)

About the Author

Ben Rothenberg is a sportswriter from Washington, D.C. He has covered Naomi Osaka around the world since she emerged onto the WTA Tour in 2014, both in print for the New York Times (where he covered tennis from 2011-2022) and on his podcast, No Challenges Remaining. His work has focused on the intersections of social and cultural issues in tennis. His longform writing has been published in outlets including Slate and Racquet. He has also appeared frequently as a tennis expert on international networks such as CNN, the BBC, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. With an eye for finding stories and dogged determination as a reporter, Rothenberg has been called  "the most powerful tennis journalist in the world" and is one of the leading voices in the sport—including on X, formerly known as Twitter, where he has more than 150,000 followers.

Editorial Reviews

10/30/2023

Racquet magazine editor Rothenberg (The Stylish Life) serves up a compassionate if unrevealing biography of the tennis phenom. Born in Japan in 1997, Osaka started playing the sport when she was still a toddler, practicing alongside her older sister and coached by her father, who sought to emulate the strategies and success of Venus and Serena Williams’s father, Richard. The Osakas moved to the U.S. in 2001 so Naomi and her sister would have more opportunities to pursue tennis (at the time, “Japan had little success producing professional tennis stars”). Highlighting the struggles Osaka faced growing up, Rothenberg notes that “onlookers and park administrators repeatedly called police on the family to interrupt the long hours spent training his daughters on the courts” in Queens, N.Y., and that the family was barely scraping by financially while Osaka was finding her footing in the tennis world. However, by age 16, Osaka had earned recognition for her ferocious serves, which clocked in at over 100 miles per hour. She went on to win four Grand Slams from 2018 to 2021, before taking a three-month hiatus in 2021 to tend to her mental health, and then stepping back again in 2023 to have a child. Rothenberg provides exciting accounts of key matches and a sensitive treatment of Osaka’s public battle with depression, but his subject remains something of an enigma, with the shy superstar’s inner life never quite coming into focus. Still, Osaka’s fans will lap this up. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"Offers an insightful lookinto the unconventional life of this Gen-Z tennis star. Sports fans will devour details about Osaka’s coaches and tournament matches on her way to becoming the number one ranked female tennis player in the world." —Booklist (STARRED REVIEW)

“A comprehensive look at the career of a young tennis star.” —Kirkus

"Rothenberg provides exciting accounts of key matches and a sensitive treatment of Osaka’s public battle with depression... Osaka’s fans will lap this up."—Publishers Weekly

“Ben Rothenberg worked alongside me for many years as a contributor to The New York Times. He is one of the best reporters in the global game of tennis, and he proves it once again with this deep dive into the multicultural phenomenon that is Naomi Osaka.”—Christopher Clarey, New York Times bestselling author of The Master

“Ben Rothenberg’s myriad revelations will inspire re-evaluations of this most reluctant superstar. With uncommon reporting, he examines what drove Osaka andwhat drove her to despair, and in doing so he articulates how she has grown, changed, and changed the game around her.”—Mary Carillo, NBC Sports and HBO’s Real Sports
 
“A compelling, comprehensive biography of one of the most fascinating athletes of the past decade. Rothenberg provides essential context for both her on-courtsuccesses and off-court decisions. Even as someone who has covered Osaka’s entire career, I learned a lot.” —Tumaini Carayol, The Guardian

"What is the price of superstardom? Rothenberg had a front-row seat for Naomi Osaka’s rise from tennis curiosity to cultural icon and he beautifully captures the ups and downs of her riveting ride." —Karen Crouse, author of Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town’s Secret to Happiness and Excellence

From the Publisher

2023-10-24
A comprehensive look at the career of a young tennis star.

Rothenberg, a senior editor for Racquet magazine, has followed Osaka ever since she joined the Women’s Tennis Association Tour in 2014. In this chronicle of the ups and downs of Osaka’s career, the author describes her parents’ marriage, Osaka’s eerie similarities to the Williams sisters, the growth and refinement of her skills as a tennis player, her early tournament successes and failures, her involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement, and her pregnancy and (possibly temporary) retirement from tournament play. Born in 1997 in Japan to a mixed-race couple (Japanese mother, Haitian father), Naomi and her sister, Mari, received strict instruction from their father, who followed the example of Richard Williams and improbably succeeded in raising a world-class tennis player (Mari also played professionally but was not as accomplished as Naomi). Osaka won the U.S. Open in 2018, defeating her personal idol, Serena Williams, in a match marred by an officiating controversy, and went on to be ranked number one in the world as both a player and an earner of endorsement income. (She has won three other major tournaments since that first victory.) But as Rothenberg shows, Osaka, like many professional athletes, has struggled with mental health issues, which has caused her to withdraw from tournaments multiple times. The author nicely handles his subject’s bouts of self-doubt and depression, and though Osaka herself was to seek a diagnosis and counseling, the descriptions of her crises are compelling. The prose is workmanlike, and the narrative structure is straightforward. The attention to detail is admirable, though perhaps too much text is devoted to the progress of individual matches. Because Osaka is only 25, a 450-page book seems a bit excessive at this point in her journey.

A solid account of the early stages of an as-yet-unfinished career.

Kirkus Reviews