Keeping women firmly in the picture for the future of British tennis

Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka picked out the kind of instantly iconic image that Julie Porter, chief operating officer of the Lawn Tennis Association, wants to see replicated in the future

Naomi Osaka celebrates winning the Australian Open (REUTERS)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words; in Naomi Osaka’s case, it was worth over 70,000 likes on Twitter.

Osaka stumbled across the image a few days after winning the Australian Open. She’s grinning in the photo, salmon sweatband-clad arms stretched to the sky in victory, front foot raised as she takes a step. Upwards, onwards - an apt illustration for the trajectory of 2020’s highest-paid female athlete, who always seems like she’s just getting started.

But it was the other person in the photo, the ball girl, who caught the four-time Grand Slam winner’s attention. The young woman with the long brown hair is crouched just behind Osaka, her eyes firmly fixated on the athlete at whom she’s beaming in admiration. In fact, it’s hard to tell who is more thrilled in the moment: the 23-year-old woman who’s just potted £1.5 million, or the girl in green quite literally looking up to her hero.