Osaka on her decision: “If I can get a conversation started in a majority white sport I consider that a step in the right direction.”

Naomi Osaka, two-time Grand Slam winner and currently ranked as the world’s No. 10 women’s tennis player, announced via Twitter Wednesday that she will sit out the Western & Souther Open semifinals as part of a protest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis.

“I don’t expect anything drastic to happen with me not playing,” Osaka wrote. “But if I can get a conversation started in a majority white sport I consider that a step in the right direction. 

“Watching the continued genocide of Black people at the hand of the police is honestly making me sick to my stomach. I’m exhausted of having a new hashtag pop up every few days and I’m extremely tired of having this same conversation over and