Is Leylah Fernandez back? The 21-year-old Canadian, a finalist at the US Open three summers ago, might be one to watch in Flushing again after earning her first Top 5 victory since that fateful fortnight on Thursday at the Cincinnati Open.
Just as she did in that famous US Open run, where she knocked off Naomi Osaka, Angelique Kerber, Elina Svitolina and Aryna Sabalenka before losing to Emma Raducanu in the final, Fernandez came up clutch when it mattered against 2022 Wimbledon champion and No. 4 seed Elena Rybakina in Cincy's second round: She rallied from a set behind for the second straight round to win back-to-back matches at a WTA 1000 event for the first time this year.
Rybakina also had two match points, seving in the second set at 6-5, 40-15, and double faulted on both. The former Wimbledon champion was competing for the first time in nearly a month, with bronchitis having forced her out of both the Paris Olympics and Toronto, and her lack of match practice showed. The WTA's ace leader struck 20 of those in the match, but also 17 double faults and 50 unforced errors. She faced 17 break points in all.
Fernandez also struggled on serve, double faulted 13 times—including twice in a row to lose the second set. Undaunted in the final frame, though, she won four of the last five games after failing to break Rybakina at 2-2, 0-40.
"I'm proud of the way I fought," Fernandez said post-match. "It wasn't the prettiest match, but I accepted it and I just tried to enjoy that moment even though a lot of mistakes were coming.
Fernandez has been enjoying a resurgent season, and returned to the Top 30 in June after an absence of nearly two years, and falling to as low as the mid-90s in the WTA rankings at a point in 2023. This year, she reached the quarterfinals at the WTA 1000 event in Doha, and was runner-up at the grass-court event in Eastbourne. But she hadn't won back-to-back matches at the WTA's highest-tier events since February, and she rolled back the years to the magic she captured in becoming the first woman born in 2002 to reach a Grand Slam final three years ago to do it.
"I just tried to make it a dogfight, just try to play a little bit of street tennis, put an ugly ball back in," Fernandez added. "We have to keep it simple. I'm happy that I found a way to get to that point. Slowly but surely, my confidence and my game was growing so that helped a lot."
Fernandez likely will find herself seeded in the No. 17-32 bracket for the US Open, meaning that she could be a third-round opponent for any of the Top 8 women's seeds, including world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, two-time defending Australian Open champion Sabalenka, or defending US Open champion Coco Gauff. And with the never-say-die attitude that propelled her to incredible heights in Flushing three years ago bubbling back to the surface, the Canadian might be peaking again at just the right time.
