Naomi Osaka and Victoria Azarenka are appropriate finalists in a tournament that has carried a strong humanitarian theme
It is six authored face masks and nearly a fortnight since Naomi Osaka, the reluctant conscience of Planet Tennis, uttered this truth at the outset of the 2020 US Open: “We’re all sort of in our separate bubbles, doing our own things.”
On the eve of playing Victoria Azarenka in the final on Saturday in a stadium named after an African-American player who spent most of his life and career butting up against prejudice, Osaka can look back on events that have both confirmed and challenged her assertion.
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