is a Japanese fashion designer, and former tennis player. In her career, she reached four ITF finals. Mari is the older sister of

Naomi Osaka is a Japanese professional tennis player. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and is the first Asian player to hold the top ranking in singles. Osaka is a four-time Grand Slam singles champio ...

, with whom she has collaborated on several fashion design and art projects.

Biography

Osaka was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and a Haitian father; shortly thereafter, the family moved to

Long Island, New York Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18th ...

. She grew up in

Fort Lauderdale A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

. Osaka made her

WTA Tour The WTA Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125K series, and third-tier is the ITF Women's Circuit. The men's equivalent is the ATP Tour. WTA Tour tourna ...

debut at the

2014 Bank of the West Classic The 2014 Bank of the West Classic was a professional tennis tournament played on hard courts. It was the 43rd edition of the tournament, which was part of the WTA Premier tournaments of the 2014 WTA Tour. It took place in Stanford, United States b ...

, in the doubles event partnering with Marina Shamayko, losing in the first round to the pair

Varvara Lepchenko Varvara (Cyrillic: Варвара; el, Βαρβάρα, ''Varvára''), a variant of " Barbara", may refer to: Places * Varvara, Azerbaijan * Varvara, Prozor, on the Rama river, Bosnia and Herzegovina * Varvara, Burgas Province, Bulgaria * Varvara ...

and

Ajla Tomljanović Ajla Tomljanović ( ; ; born 7 May 1993) is an Australian professional tennis player. She has won four singles and three doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. On 31 October 2022, she reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 33. On 5 Janu ...

. She made her WTA Tour singles debut at the

2019 Miami Open The 2019 Miami Open (sponsored by Itaú) was a professional men and women's tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts that started on March 18, 2019, and ended on March 31, 2019. It was the 35th edition of the Miami Open, and part of the ...

, having received a wildcard into the main draw, but lost to

Whitney Osuigwe Whitney Osuigwe ( ; born April 17, 2002) is an American tennis player. In 2017, Osuigwe was the ITF Junior World Champion. She won the juniors 2017 French Open to become the first American to win the girls' singles event in Paris in 28 years. ...

. Osaka announced retirement from professional tennis in early 2021. Since retirement, she has focused on her art and fashion design, including co-designing her sister Naomi's

Met Gala The Met Gala, or Met Ball, formally called the Costume Institute Gala or the Costume Institute Benefit, is an annual fundraising gala held for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York City. It is popularly r ...

look in fall 2021. Osaka's previous artistic work includes creating custom-designed COVID masks for UNICEF and illustrating the cover for GQ Japan's June 2020 edition featuring her sister.

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 4 (4 runner–ups)

References

External links

* * 1996 births Living people Japanese female tennis players Japanese people of Haitian descent Sportspeople from Osaka Naomi Osaka 21st-century Japanese women {{Japan-tennis-bio-stub