Talk:Naomi Osaka

First Asian #1?

This appears to be factually false, and obviously so. Maria Sharapova has been rated #1 before, and she's not exactly obscure. Though she is currently a US resident from what I can tell, she was born in Asia. What's going on with this crazy claim in the second paragraph?

"becoming the first Asian player to be the world's number one"

Has Naomi Osaka ever even lived in Asia? I suppose that one is open to interpretation - every Japanese person I've ever asked about it, or been told, has said Japan is not part of Asia. Most non-Japanese seem to think Japan IS part of Asia. But Maria Sharapova being rated #1, and being born in Asia, those are facts not up for debate. These are not opinions, these are facts, and I'm not sure anybody could even try to debate them. Is there evidence that Maria Sharapova was not born in Nyagan? Surely this false claim about Naomi Osaka has to be edited or removed. I'm not sure how something so brazenly and obviously false can remain like this. Smyslov (talk) 19:12, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

First, you need to dial back the righteous indignation. Then, you need to have a read of Wikipedia:Verifiability not truth. Every news outlet reporting Osaka's achievement – bar none – referred to her as the first ever Asian world No. 1. I don't recall anybody saying that about Sharapova when she reached the top spot, and I can't find any mention in a Google search either. On Wikipedia we say what can be verified by reference to reliable sources.

I think the point about Osaka is that she represents Japan (and trust me, Japan is in Asia). If she had opted to represent the US, as Sharapova did, she would just be the latest American world No. 1. Scolaire (talk) 14:31, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Actually, I notice that the Sharapova article calls her "the first Russian woman to hold the world No. 1 ranking", which dilutes my previous point a bit. But the fact that Naomi Osaka's name is followed by a Japanese flag is definitely a significant factor (and my point about verifiability not truth still holds). Scolaire (talk) 14:41, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

She also never played for the US, she only represented Russia. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:03, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

You also have to remember that the term asian as used in the "first asian No. 1", refers to race not geography. That would usually include the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. It would exclude North Asia (which include Russia), Central Asia, and Western Asia. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:40, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry for bumping this years later @Fyunck(click), but I'd like to point out that "Asian" as used to describe Naomi Osaka is not defined by social constructions of "race". Osaka's father is Haitian-born and she's among the growing number of hafus (mixed-race or any part-Japanese descended people) in Japan. Furthermore, as far as the "race" goes, it's contextual. In America alone, many South Asian Americans may not identify as "South Asian American" or "Asian American" despite U.S census definitions (Figure 11) because America's common racial definition of "Asian" leans towards "Mongoloid-looking" East Asian descendants (for lack of a better term).

FWIW, there is a West Asian Tennis Federation, which is a part of the Asian Tennis Federation and affiliated with the International Tennis Federation; ATF's website seems to include Central Asia as well.[1]

Describing Osaka as "Asian" is simply a matter of the popularly constructed idea of "Asia" in modern times. Many of the Anglophone news outlets cited on her page typically only refer to East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent/South Asia as "Asian". Look at the United States definition of "Asian" that excludes West Asians or Central Asians. Even countries like the U.K, while often including[2] West Asians in their definition of "British Asian" in various contexts, news outlets like the BBC still use the "Middle East"[3] as a term distinct from Asia as well (though the BBC has also done documentaries focused on West Asians[4]; BBC Asian Network launched Brown Girls Do It Too ... Bangladeshi, Indian and Iranian heritage).

As frustrating as the geographical boundaries of "Asia" are defined as and the OP's technically accurate assertions, @Scolaire is right that sources describing Sharapova as "Asian" are virtually nonexistent. @Smyslov - Even if most of Russia (Siberia) is geographically in (North) Asia, Russians are ethnically culturally defined as Eastern Europeans, not North Asians, Central Asians or East Asians. This is presumably why reliable sources do not define Sharapova as "Asian", and I'm sure she'd call herself "Russian", "Eastern European" or "Slavic" when asked about her origins. Clear Looking Glass (talk) 11:01, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

I have personally found at least two factually false statements on Wikipedia over the years, so it very much can have false information on it while citing "reliable sources" (for example, the article on Beethoven claimed he wrote the first symphony containing trombones; completely untrue, despite the fact that it had references to "reliable" sources. It was eventually corrected, and I'm thinking eventually this will be as well). I ask the following questions: (1) Was Maria Sharapova rated #1 by the WTA prior to Naomi Osaka being rated #1? (2) Was Maria Sharapova born in Nyagan, Russia? (3) Is Nyagan, Russia located on the area of land known as "Asia"? As far as I can tell, the answer to all three of these questions is "yes", and sources seem to be available regarding this information. Your condescending and bizarre opening sentence is irrelevant: this seems to be a matter of chronology and geography. Smyslov (talk) 18:55, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

@Smyslov: It is you who are being condescending and pompous. You have a serious attitude problem; You could have simply said "I believe that it is inaccurate to state that Osaka is the first Asian player to be the world's number one", instead of Surely this false claim about Naomi Osaka has to be edited or removed. I'm not sure how something so brazenly and obviously false can remain like this. We all find factually false information on Wikipedia from time to time, but we don't all declare them anathema as if we were the emperor of the project, or the undisputed source of all knowledge. I had a look at your contribution at Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven), and the error was corrected not by this ridiculous, bombastic edit, but by this edit where an altruistic fellow-editor went to the trouble of finding a source which you were too lazy to look for.

Now, this is neither a matter of chronology or geography; it is a matter of Wikipedia policy. I don't doubt that you can find reliable sources that say that Sharapova was born in Nyagan, that Nyagan is located on the continent of Asia, and that Sharapova was ranked world No. 1 in 2005. But – and this is the catch – if you read WP:SYNTH, you will see that you cannot "combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." In other words, you have to find reliable, published sources that not only say all of those things, but also says that because of that, she was the first world No. 1 from Asia. And when I say sources, I mean a lot of sources, because Wikipedia policy requires due weight, i.e. a viewpoint has to be represented in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources, and there are many, many published, reliable sources that say Osaka is the first. If you didn't actually read Verifiability not truth, please take the trouble to read it now. If you did, please take the trouble to read it again. You need to understand that just knowing better than everybody else is not enough. Scolaire (talk) 12:49, 12 March 2019 (UTC)