⁍ Billie Jean King hails Naomi Osaka for her ‘compassion, strength and leadership’
King was deeply impressed by the actions of the quiet young champion who announced she would forgo her semifinal match in protest at police brutality and racial injustice in the U.S.
The 76-year-old King, so remarkable in her own lifelong fight for women’s equality, recognised a kindred spirit as she told Reuters how she felt the fiercely determined 22-year-old was now following in an honourable sporting tradition.

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– “It has been more than 50 years since athletes like Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith and the Original 9 of women’s tennis all stood up and used their sport, their voices, and their actions to change humanity,” Billie Jean King tells Reuters. “The baton has been passed and Naomi has accepted it with open arms and that shows compassion, strength, and leadership.” King, the 76-year-old founder of the US Tennis Association, says 22-year-old Osaka’s actions at the Western & Southern Open this week “were a catalyst for change” and Osaka “is putting people first, being authentic, and she is leading. I love what Naomi and her generation of athletes are doing today.” Osaka pulled out of her semifinal match Thursday, citing the “continued genocide of Black people at the hand of police” in the wake of the fatal shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis. The Japan-born Osaka eventually won that match, but had to drop out of the final Saturday with a hamstring injury. “I don’t know what would have happened if Naomi Osaka wasn’t in the semi-finals,’ former US Open finalist Pam Shriver tells Reuters. “She’s led the way either with her racket or with her statements into a position of really good, modern-day leadership. She’s led the way either with her racket or with her statements into a position of really good, modern-day leadership.”