Naomi Osaka will wear her 7th mask remembering victims of racial injustice as she qualifies for the U.S. Open finals

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Enroute to her semi-final victory, Naomi Osaka wore a mask with Philando Castile's name.

It took three hard-fought sets but Naomi Osaka fought off Jennifer Brady, 7-6, 3-6, 6-3, to advance to the finals of the U.S. Open tennis tournament and she gets another chance to wear her final face-mask bringing the nation's attention to racial injustice.

Osaka, ranked No. 4, throughout the tournament has been wearing face-masks with the names of African Americans who died at the hands of police or self-anointed vigilantes. Friday, her mask had the name of Philando Castile, 29, who was shot dead by an officer during a routine traffic stop in St. Anthony, Minnesota.

Castile, who warned the officer he had a license for a firearm, was shot as he reached for an ID, according to his girlfriend who was in the car with him. Officer Jeronimo Yanez was later found not guilty of second-degree manslaughter and also acquitted of two counts of intentional discharge of a firearm that endangers safety. However, he was fired from the St. Antony Police Dept.

Osaka had seven masks made for the U.S. Open, enough, she said, to reach the finals. In the women's final Saturday, she will wear her seventh mask when she enters the Arthur Ash court in Queens, New York City to play against 25-year old Victoria Azarenka, who beat 3rd-ranked Serena WIlliams, 39, Friday evening, 1-6, 6-3, 6-3.

The normally shy and reticent Osaka is using her social media platform and her celebrity status to remind her fans of those African Americans who had died unjustly in recent years.

The week before the U.S. Open, she joined other professional athletes who boycotted play by temporarily withdrawing from the Western & Southern Open, a warmup to the U.S. Open As a result, the entire tournament paused for a day before returning to play a day later.

She returns to center court, two years after she upset Williams on the same court to win her first Grand Slam tournament. A few months later, she won the Australian Open and gained No. 1 ranking for a few months before relinquishing the title.

Despite her drop in ranking, the 22-year old, playing for Japan where she was born, is now tennis' highest-paid women's player.

Osaka appears to be maturing and finding her independent voice and is no longer to speak out. In another sign of independence, she has moved from Boca Raton, Florida where her family lives to Los Angeles where she lives with rapper YBN Cordae. 

She and Cordae traveled to Minneapolis and joined the protests last June in the wake of the killing of another African American man, George Floyd, while he was being arrested. Osaka wore George Floyd's name on her mask Tuesday in her quarter-finals match.

"I'm not sure what the world would look like if everything was peaceful, but I would hope that people help each other in times of great need," she told CNN Sports. "I would also hope that the older generation isn't scared to help the younger generation. For me, the biggest thing is I don't want people younger than me to suffer through the things I have to suffer through."