A 20-year-old Japanese triumphed over Serena Williams 2-0 in the final of the US Open. Naomi Osaka was born Japanese and grew American in the world of tennis.

Osaka is the name of Japan’s second largest city down south and Naomi is one of most popular girl’s names in Japan – that should make a combination of both, Naomi Osaka, definitely Japanese. It sure does, and the whole of Japan was overjoyed September 10 as a professional tennis player by that name defeated that notorious Serena Williams in the US Open in a sheer 2-0 upset.

A Japanese dominating the US Open of all tennis tournaments sure was something to worth remembering.

It certainly was a historic feat, no doubt, and a good enough reason why every TV channel ran the news all day long. Naomi is the first Japanese tennis player, gender aside, ever to beat a top-notch adversary in the US Open of all tournaments. You’ve read about it by now; no sense going into the details of the controversial match. Let me, then, skip them all and observe the phenomenon from a different perspective.

Let me say outright that the story is not that simple – I mean Naomi’s feat carries along it a chain of facts to ponder on before we cry out loud “Bravo”.

Though Naomi Osaka sounds Japanese by name, she is a Haiti-Japanese by breed, Haiti-American Japanese by nationality and Japanese/American by citizenship. That means Naomi is biracial, or hafu (half), and has had her share of inter-racial complexities.

Her Japanese mother had had to stay away from her family over a decade on account of her marriage to a Haitian. Naomi said in her interview in 2016 that “from her name, my mother’s family didn’t expect to see a black girl.”

By the way, do any of you know these names: Julian Jrummi Walsh, Aska Antonio Cambridge, and Abdul Hakim Sani Brown? These young men are Japan’s leading track runners and all amply colored. They team up Japanese co-runners to represent in the Olympics a country where racial homogeneity is prevalent.

Naomi Osaka has joined the hall of fame of colored athletes in a glorious style, and few have any reason to object to her honor. Naomi has earned her national recognition with her professional skill and also with tons of effort and strife to overcome those racial complexities she herself could do nothing about. That said, there yet are those among us Japanese who wish deep inside a genuine Japanese Naomi Osaka had achieved the feat of ousting Serena Williams.

After beating Sharapova in the first round of BNP Paribas Open, Naomi said “there are three people I wanted to play, Venus, Sharapova and Serena. Now, I’m just waiting to play Serena”.

She has played and defeated Serena in style. Whether or not it was an accidental upset Naomi’s upcoming tourneys will tell; whether or not she henceforth weaves nicely into the delicate fabric of racial homogeneity of her home country by birth depends partly on her readiness to get over all those racial this and that and predominantly on how Japanese society shifts its prevalent posture on “racism”.

All of us should now learn to cohabit this land of rich culture with hundreds of more Naomis – with or without professional achievements.

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