Tennis player Naomi Osaka will give up her US citizenship and in the future only own the Japanese. This confirmed the world ranking third the Japanese TV channel NHK.
"It gives me a special boost to represent Japan in the Olympics," Osaka said. "I think I'll fool you with more emotion because I'm playing for the pride of the nation."
The fact that the two-time Grand Slam winner ever has to decide for only one nationality, is due to Japanese law. This requires that Japanese citizens with dual citizenship choose a nationality until their 22nd birthday. Osaka will be on 16 October 22.
The tennis pro was born in the Japanese prefecture of Osaka and came to the USA at the age of three. Her mother is Japanese, her father is Haitian. Her language skills in Japanese are far from as good as her English. "I understand Japanese a lot better than I speak," she said in an interview with USA Today.
This circumstance has repeatedly led to her being attacked in Japan. Not only her language is the topic, also because of her skin tone she was already victim of racist utterances.
Last weekend, Osaka had defeated world number one Ashleigh Barty and won the China Open. It was her first tournament victory in eight months.
