Visits: 2
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — It’s a familiar sight to have a top player’s sister in the draw of the Miami Open, where this year Venus and Serena Williams are both competing for a 17th time.
But this tournament is the first time at a WTA-level event that top-ranked Naomi Osaka was joined in the singles main draw by her older sister, Mari.
Everyone else in women’s tennis is ranked below Naomi Osaka right now, including Mari, 22, who is ranked 338th, and normally plays lower-level events.
She received a wild card for this tournament and played her first WTA main draw match on Thursday against another wild card, 205th-ranked Whitney Osuigwe. Osaka acquitted herself well in a 6-2, 6-4 loss.
Naomi Osaka, who is 18 months younger than her sister, said that it was “really enjoyable” to have her Mari with her at a tournament, and that she hoped it would be an experience they shared far more in the future.
“For me it would be a dream,” Osaka said. “Because I don’t really talk to that many people, and she’s the nicer one in this relationship. It would definitely mean a lot.”
Though siblings like the Williamses or Marat Safin and Dinara Safina have risen to the peaks of the sport, siblings with far different career altitudes are more common.
Naomi Osaka’s opposite number in the men’s tour, top-ranked Novak Djokovic, had two younger brothers who struggled in the large shadow he cast. Despite receiving many wild cards, Marko Djokovic reached a career-high ranking of No. 571; Djordje Djokovic reached No. 1,463. Marko, 27, now coaches and competes only occasionally, while Djordje, 23, stopped competing in 2015.
Novak Djokovic, 31, said that his brothers’ decisions to step back from tennis had come as a relief to him.
“I’m glad they’ve decided themselves what they want to do, because in the end of the day it’s something that gives me satisfaction and peace, knowing that they made the decision, not myself or my parents or anybody else,” Djokovic said. “Because in this kind of circumstance, they feel obliged, or they feel pressure that they have to meet the expectations of the other brother or sister. Because if you’re part of the same sport, naturally, everyone will compare you to your other siblings. It’s not ideal, especially if your other sibling is the best in the world.”
Siblings of top players have often drafted off that familial fame to get started in their career, but the main draw wild card for Mari Osaka raised many eyebrows around the tournament, considering she was ranked more than 200 spots below the cut for the qualifying draw for this elite event. James Blake, the Miami Open tournament director, said the decision to double the number of Osakas in the draw had been an easy one.
“Obviously Naomi is someone that’s accomplished so much, and you want to encourage her sister as well,” Blake said. “You wonder if there’s a lot of talent and she hasn’t had the same opportunities. We know she’ll also be a draw. Naomi has so many fans; Mari is going to hopefully gain some of those fans by association.”
Blake, who reached a career-best of No. 4, had a brother, Thomas, who reached 264th — a parallel that he admitted tinted his view.
“He got some wild cards, definitely with the Blake name,” James Blake said. “He really appreciated them. Mari has thanked me, her parents have thanked me. They realize that this is a big opportunity for her.”
It is rarer for the younger sibling to make a splash on tour first. For most of their childhoods, Mari had dominated her younger sister in practice matches.
“Up until I was 15 she was 6-0-ing me, ridiculous,” Naomi said. “I don’t know what happened, maybe finally something clicked in my head, but for sure she was beating me. In the win-loss record, she’s up by like a million or something.”
Both entered the qualifying draw of the WTA tournament in Stanford, Calif., in 2014. Naomi, then 16, reached the main draw and then stunned the 2011 United States Open champion, Samantha Stosur, in the first round.
“It’s probably the second-best win of my life,” Osaka said after that victory, “the first being when I first beat my sister.”
As Naomi continued to soar upward, Mari’s trajectory stalled; her career-best ranking was 280th last May. Before Thursday she had not competed for more than a month because of a right shoulder injury. Her first match this season was a 6-0, 6-0 loss to 471st-ranked Katie Volynets, a far cry from the competitive level she showed on Thursday.
Mari Osaka said she was determined to play this tournament, knowing for the past six months that she would be awarded a wild card.
“It was just super exciting and new for me,” Mari said of the experience. “I’m super thankful that I actually got it.”
She smiled at the mention of her sister’s rise from 70th to first in the rankings since the beginning of last year. “I’m really proud of her,” Mari said.
Asked if she was able to focus on her own path or felt she had “big shoes to fill,” Mari said: “My own journey is separate, but of course I tend to compare a little bit, so it’s frustrating. But, you know, not much I can do about that.”
Osaka then abruptly broke into tears. She apologized, accepted a moderator’s offer to leave the room to regain her composure, and returned several minutes later.
When she returned, she was able to focus on the positives she took from the match.
“I played this match with no pain, which I haven’t done in such a long time,” she said. “It feels really good, like I can keep moving forward from here.”
