The video streaming service launched the first look at its new sport title on Tuesday, focused on the life of the four-time grand slam champion and her battles with being catapulted into the public eye. “What am I if I’m not a good tennis player?” Naomi Osaka asks in the trailer for her new self-titled Netflix documentary series.
‘Naomi Osaka,’ personally described by the tennis star, glances back at the 23-year-old’s upbringing and how her 2018 US Open win transformed her into an “overnight superstar.”
“The series is about Naomi’s journey, within a snapshot of her life,” director Garrett Bradley, whose film ‘Time’ was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, said in a press release.
“But it’s also about life’s purpose, about personal worth, about the courage that it takes to allow one’s personal values to inform their work and vice versa.
“More than anything, I’d hope people can feel the power of empathy and to feel encouraged to take chances in life, perhaps especially in moments where the stakes can feel impossibly high.”
Osaka will make her re-visitation of competitive tennis at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in the wake of withdrawing from the French Open, citing mental health reasons. She later reported she had likewise withdrawn from the current year’s Wimbledon.
The Japanese world No. 2 uncovered she had “suffered long bouts of depression” since winning her first grand slam title in 2018.
“I feel like the platform that I have right now is something that I used to take for granted, and for me I feel like I should be using it for something,” she said in a press release for the new series. “I believe, instead of following, you have to make your own path.”
The three-part documentary will air on July 16th.