Oh, Canada. For the first time in more than 60 years, four men from the Great White North advanced to the second round of the US Open, but in the women's draw, all eyes up north are on teenager Leylah Fernandez.
With 2019 Open champion Bianca Andreescu still sidelined in the aftermath of a knee injury which she suffered at the end of last season, all eyes in Canadian women's tennis in 2020 have been firmly affixed on this 17-year-old—who will turn 18 on Sunday—and she's risen to the occasion.
This time last year, Fernandez was ranked world No. 233, and a surge over the past 12 months—halted by the COVID-19 pandemic—now sees her knocking on the door of the WTA's Top 100.
As she gets set to take on reigning Australian Open champion and No. 2 seed Sofia Kenin on Thursday, here's more on the left-hander from Montreal, who is the lone Canadian in the women's singles field.
She recorded several milestones before professional tennis was paused by the pandemic.
Fernandez had a long list of firsts over the opening eight weeks of 2020. In January, she qualified for her first professional Grand Slam at the Australian Open, beating three players ranked ahead of her to earn her spot in the main draw. Less than a moth later, she scored her first victory over a player ranked in the Top 10 when she beat Switzerland's Belinda Bencic in Fed Cup.
Then-world No. 5 Bencic, a semifinalist at the Open last year, lauded Fernandez after the match, saying: “She really deserved the win. Already, she’s a great player at 17 years old."
Rounding out the winter, the Canadian had perhaps her most impressive stretch in back-to-back tournaments in Mexico, immediately preceding the hiatus. As a qualifying wild card at the WTA event in Acapulco in February, Fernandez won six consecutive matches without the loss of a set to reach her first WTA singles final, and in the ensuing week in Monterrey, she defeated Sloane Stephens en route to the quarterfinals.
Upon resumption, Fernandez picked up right where she left off: in her first tournament back in Lexington, Ky., she successfully qualified and again beat Stephens among three wins, and also qualified for the Western & Southern Open last week in New York.
She'll always remember New York.
On Tuesday, Fernandez earened a straight-sets victory over former world No. 2 and 2010 US Open finalist Vera Zvonareva on Court 8 that was notable in more ways than one.
Not only was the victory Fernandez's first in a major main draw, she defeated a woman who, now age 35 and a mother, turned professional in 2000—two years before the Canadian was born.
"My dad told me she was once No. 2 in the world and she was really tough," Fernandez said after the win. "I've always believed I could get to the next level. To get the win over a former Top 3 is amazing."
She had a decorated junior career before entering the professional ranks.
Last year, Fernandez was a runner-up in juniors at the Australian Open. One Slam later, she finished the job: with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over American Emma Navarro in the girls' singles final at the French Open, she became the first female Canadian to win a junior Grand Slam title since Eugenie Bouchard at Wimbledon in 2012. As the top seed in Paris, the lefty did not drop a set in six matches, dropping just 24 games in 13 sets.
By the end of 2019, Fernandez had already tasted a victory on the professional tour, too. In July, she swept the $25,000 ITF World Tennis Tour event in Gatineau, Canada—first by rallying from a set down to beat compatriot Carson Branstine in the singles final, and later partnered with another Canadian, Rebecca Marino, to take the doubles title.
In all, Fernandez played six finals on the ITF circuit in 2019—three each in singles and doubles—and cut her pro ranking in half by the season's end.
She comes from a sporting family—and is a citizen of the world.
Fernandez is of Ecuadorean and Filipino descent, and is fluent in English, French, and Spanish. Her father, Jorge, is a former soccer player, and her younger sister, Bianca Jolie, also plays tennis.
In the aftermath of a heartbreaking loss to Great Britain's Heather Watson in the championship in Acapulco—Fernandez battled to save nine match points before ultimately succumbing in a 6-4, 6-7, 6-1 three-setter that lasted nearly three hours—she charmed the Mexican crowd by delivering her runner-up speech in Spanish.
"I felt their love, their love for the sport, and just the love of competition," the teenger said in April. "Being there, because I speak Spanish, helps a little bit. I felt a little bit more of the audience on my side. Just having people watching my match and enjoying their time, that's one of the reasons why I play tennis: to show them what I'm capable of and just to enjoy the beauty of sports."
She's firmly one to watch in the WTA youth movement.
One of 11 teenagers in the women's draw at the start of the tournament, Fernandez is now the second-youngest of the six who remain, bettered only by 16-year-old American wild card Katrina Scott.
