Naomi Osaka’s new GT-R Nismo is proof that being a champion rocks

Imagine you are a professional tennis player. Most people can already settle with that dream alone. But, imagine you’re a Grand Slam champion tennis player with a Nissan GT-R Nismo Super Silver – that, our friends, is the dream.

Except that, all that’s mentioned above are real and it’s all being enjoyed by US Open champion Naomi Osaka. Aside from being the number four female tennis player in the world ranked by the Women’s Tennis Association, Nissan also chose the Japanese athlete to be its brand ambassador. With that, the company gave her a Super Silver 2018 GT-R Nismo to be her daily driver. Sounds like being late to tennis practices won’t be an acceptable excuse now.

*above: Naomi Osaka's post on Twitter.

Born in Osaka, the 21-year-old Grand Slam champion currently lives in Florida, USA. She’s the second daughter of Tamaki Osaka and Leonard François, a sister to Mari who is also a professional tennis player. Out of practical reasons, Naomi’s parents decided the sisters should use their mother’s maiden name ‘Osaka.’ Her father, Leonard, taught tennis to the sisters despite little experience in the sport.

A little trivia on the Osaka sisters rising on top of the sport is that Leonard François structured his daughters’ career ladders as with the Williams sisters, Serena and Venus. There are a number of hair-raising similarities with François and Richard Williams, but the common ones are: both didn’t have enough experience in the sport when they were training their daughters, and the fact that both families transferred to Florida. It seemed like Williams has created a blueprint to success, which François trusted for his daughters.

(But, yeah...) When you’re one of the top tennis players in the world and you have one powerful beast in your garage, there really isn't much left to ask. Let’s just say that the Super Silver GT-R Nismo or ‘Godzilla’ has an overwhelming 600-hp 3.8-liter V6 engine under its hood. You could literally storm each tennis practice like a boss with that thing. In comparison, the normal local-spec GT-R is powered by a 3.8 V6 with 565 hp. The difference is quite obvious; the Nismo isn’t just a normal Godzilla but an angrier one.

Of course, we’re happy for the Asian-bred tennis champion. However, we couldn’t help but wish we were in her shoes. So, to end our jealousy, we’d like to put it this way; if we’re the ones who have the car, we’d literally attend tennis practices seven times a week, three times a day, given that each training venue should be at least a mile away. What a dream. Yeah, what a dream.