Fernandez, Leylah (2002- )

Viewers of the U.S. Open embraced the young finalists in women’s singles, a pair of teenagers who seemed as if they had been around forever.We adapt quickly. It’s part of the human spirit, whether we are teenage tennis stars or the people who line up and take a seat to watch them in the world’s biggest tennis stadium.Two weeks ago, the vast majority of us had never heard of Leylah Fernandez or Emma Raducanu. Fernandez had never been past the third round in a major tournament and had struggled to find her best form in recent weeks. Raducanu joined the tour in earnest only this summer and had to make it through the off-Broadway qualifying tournament to secure a spot in the U.S. Open. But by Saturday, when Fernandez, 19, and Raducanu, 18, took to the court for one of the most unlikely Grand Slam finals, we already had a connection.They had boldly worked through the women’s draw during this special U.S. Open, which was full of communion between the players and the public after all the distancing of the last year and a half.By Saturday, those who had been following the finalists’ unexpected progress already knew about their strengths, their multicultural backgrounds and even their quirks: Fernandez’s jig behind the baseline before walking forward to serve, Raducanu’s habit of blowing on her fingers between points as if to cool off a very hot hand.But what was most striking on Saturday was how quickly both unseeded players adjusted to this grand occasion, calmly giving thoughtful prematch television interviews, walking past Billie Jean King’s quote on the tunnel wall, which says that “pressure is a privilege,” and then walking past King herself as they emerged into the late-afternoon sunshine for the biggest opportunity of their short careers.It was all new, but you would not have known it once the ball was in play, as both attacked their groundstrokes and did their best to seize the occasion even after having nearly two full days to think about the occasion once they had won their semifinals.After the introductions, Fernandez ripped a backhand crosscourt winner on the opening point. Raducanu later pounded a backhand winner of her own to hold serve and win the opening game.The left-handed Leylah Fernandez uses more spin and enjoys deploying the drop shot.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesGrand Slam finals, even with more experienced players, can too quickly become one-way traffic. Tennis is a game of momentum, and the best-of-three-set format used by the women allows less time to turn the tide than the best-of-five format used by the men.But Raducanu and Fernandez both held firm, extending rallies with their quickness and defensive skills on the move, smartly sending lobs high into the atmosphere when cornered. But just as impressively, they finished points with authority when they had created the space to go for winners. Their styles contrast in some ways. The left-handed Fernandez uses more spin and enjoys deploying the drop shot. Her technique is more artisanal than textbook, with her hands often far apart on the grip on a two-handed backhand as she improvises on the fly. The right-handed Raducanu favors more direct power and has fabulous fundamentals that allow her to control the ball even while swinging ferociously. She has a knack for making the tricky shot look smooth and an ability to run around her backhand in a flash and rip an inside-out forehand that Roger Federer could relate to. But Fernandez and Raducanu are very contemporary tennis talents in their ability to sustain pace and consistency from low body positions, their knees often touching the court as they counterpunch.Some of their extended rallies on Saturday were spectacular as they exchanged backhand bolts with nary a grunt, their sneakers squeaking on the hardcourt as they each focused on becoming a U.S. Open champion.Only Raducanu would get that great satisfaction, and though the score of 6-4, 6-3 will look fairly lopsided in the history books, anyone who watched will know that the match was much more tenuous than that.“These two young women are a gift to tennis, an absolute gift,” Andy Roddick, the 2003 U.S. Open men’s champion, wrote in a post on Twitter. Raducanu will get no shortage of attention at home and abroad for her breakthrough. A fine student in the classroom, she is clearly a very quick study on a tennis court, too. But women’s tennis is a wide-open world these days: Fourteen players have won their first Grand Slam singles title since 2015. More big trophies are no guarantee, no matter how phenomenal Raducanu’s run was in New York. But she seems wise beyond her years and not entirely of her generation: “I still haven’t checked my phone,” she said Saturday night. Riches, unlike trophies, surely await. Raducanu is from Britain, a major market, and is telegenic with a global appeal as the well-spoken daughter of parents with roots in Romania and China. Also, her agent is Max Eisenbud, who helped turn Maria Sharapova’s unexpected Wimbledon victory at age 17 into gold and now has an even more unlikely success story to work with.Raducanu finished her high-school exams shortly before Wimbledon, where she reached the fourth round in her Grand Slam debut and got a taste of “Emmamania” only to struggle with her breathing and nerves and retire mid-match against Ajla Tomljanovic.I asked Raducanu if she viewed her ability to rebound so quickly from that setback as a triumph. “I think the biggest triumph for me is how I managed to just not think of absolutely anything else except for my game plan,” she said. “I just completely zoned in and focused on my craft.”The crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Saturday night saw two young players whose poise and adaptability were remarkable.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesRoddick was right to shine a light on both players on Saturday. Fernandez is not yet a Grand Slam champion, but she is a world-class fighter who walks between points with the steely determination of someone on her way to break up a bar brawl. She and her family have sacrificed plenty for her tennis career, and after losing a back-and-forth first set, Fernandez had every reason to still believe in her chances — given all of her successful battles with top players at Flushing Meadows. She upset three players ranked in the top five — Naomi Osaka, Elina Svitolina and Aryna Sabalenka — as well as Angelique Kerber, a former No. 1 in resurgent form.Fernandez had beaten them all in three sets, so when Raducanu took a 5-2 lead in the second set but was unable to convert her first two match points on Fernandez’s serve, Fernandez grinned as if she knew something that nobody else yet suspected.Why should she not have believed in another comeback? But when she got a break point in the next game, she had to wait to play it as Raducanu, who had scraped her left knee while sliding for a shot, took an injury timeout to clean up trickling blood and have the wound bandaged.The stoppage was well within the rules, but in this thinker’s sport of ebbs and flows, it may have made the difference. Raducanu said she was concerned about losing her rhythm, as well. But it was Fernandez who expressed displeasure about the long pause to officials and then pushed a forehand long. Raducanu then saved a second break point with a leaping tap of an overhead.She was back to deuce with Arthur Ashe Stadium abuzz and presumably most of Britain wide-awake, as the match was broadcast in prime time in Raducanu’s home country.This time, she did not flinch, surprising Fernandez with a fine serve down the T that gave her command of the rally and brought her a third match point.She mulled her options, tossed the ball high and smacked an ace to become the first qualifier in the long history of tennis to win a Grand Slam singles title. In 10 matches, she never lost a set.Raducanu became the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam singles title.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times“I never thought I would see it, so I’m in shock,” said King, who watched from the stands as Raducanu dropped her racket and fell to the court, her hands covering her face.It was a transformative moment, one that left both players in tears. But what seemed remarkable when the match ended was the same thing that had seemed remarkable as it began: the poise and adaptability of both young finalists.And when Fernandez, her eyes still red, seemed to have answered her last question at the awards ceremony, she had the presence of mind to ask for the microphone one more time and say what she had planned for this bittersweet Saturday, the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.“I know on this day it was especially hard for New York and everyone around us,” she said. “I just hope I can be as strong and resilient as New York has been the past 20 years.”David Waldstein More

Emma Raducanu, the 18-year-old British phenom, completed a shocking run through the U.S. Open with a straight-sets victory over Leylah Fernandez of Canada on Saturday for a title that will surely go down as one of the great underdog journeys in the history of sports.Raducanu, ranked 150th in the world and barely known two weeks ago, became the first player to win a Grand Slam title after surviving the qualifying tournament, a scenario that may very well never be repeated. She also became the first woman from Britain to win a Grand Slam singles title since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977.And she did it the way she had handled every other match she played in New York, where she did not lose a set in 10 matches, a remarkable 20-set streak and another feat that is unlikely to be repeated anytime soon. Saturday’s score line was a clean 6-4, 6-3. “An absolute dream,” Raducanu called it.Raducanu’s game, a rare mix of power and precision, proved too much for Fernandez, a quick and fearless counterpuncher who possesses deceptive power as well. On Saturday afternoon, though, in front of a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium where the crowd blanketed both players with love, Fernandez simply ran out of points and punches, as Raducanu’s laserlike shots to the deepest parts of the court kept landing just beyond the Canadian teenager’s reach.After a tight first set, during which both players had chances to grab the early lead, Raducanu surged toward the finish line in the sixth game of the second set, breaking Fernandez’s serve by blocking what looked like a sure putaway with a screeching forehand down the line.Raducanu did not lose a set in the entire tournament.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesEver the fighter, Fernandez saved two match points as she served at 2-5 to keep the match going. In the next game, she sent Raducanu sprawling to the ground, as she chased Fernandez’s shot deep to the corner. But Raducanu settled herself during a medical timeout to get a cut on her leg bandaged, and five points later finished off the match with an ace. She collapsed on the court as the stadium exploded.“I was just praying not for a double-fault,” Raducanu would say of the finish, just before she became the unlikeliest lifter of a Grand Slam trophy that tennis has ever seen.Queen Elizabeth even chimed in, sending out a statement from Balmoral Castle praising Raducanu for “a remarkable achievement at such a young age.”This was the rarest of finals, a contest between two players known only to the most faithful of tennis fans two weeks ago.They had played once before, in the Wimbledon junior tournament in 2018. Raducanu won that match in straight sets as well. But two years ago, Raducanu was pretty sure her path would lead to college and a career in finance. She took her entrance exams earlier this year, around the time that she was playing in the lower tier tournaments that earned her a wild-card entry into Wimbledon, where she made her Grand Slam debut. This was her first summer of top-level competition.Fernandez, who turned 19 this week and is ranked 73rd, was until a few days ago known as little more than a scrappy, undersized battler. Few had predicted greatness for her. Some years back, a teacher told her to give up the game because she would never amount to anything.The crowd showered the two finalists with affection.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesFor tennis, their stunning journeys to the final could not have come at a better time. The sport had landed in an awkward spot in the weeks leading up to this U.S. Open. Novak Djokovic arrived in New York trying to accomplish the rarest of tennis feats, winning all four Grand Slam tournaments in a calendar year, but most of the game’s biggest stars had fallen off the map. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal announced they were skipping the tournament because of injuries, as did Serena and Venus Williams.Then, on the first Friday night of the tournament, Naomi Osaka, the reigning champion and the biggest new star in tennis, lost to Fernandez in three sets and announced that she planned to leave the sport indefinitely. The game, she said, was no longer bringing her joy. Osaka spoke in the spring of battling depression since winning her first Grand Slam title at the U.S. Open in 2018.Once more, the dark side of the sport, a lonely, pressure-filled crucible often endured by young talents not ready to handle it, had burst into the open.Then along came Raducanu and Fernandez, two bright lights whose lineages span four continents. They delighted crowds with rousing victories and unique styles. After every win, Raducanu said she could not believe what had just happened, while Fernandez said how strongly she believed she could not lose, even if she had no right to think that way as she plowed through one highly ranked player after the next.Here was something all too rare on the tennis court — unadulterated joy from athletes playing loose and free, without any baggage from missed opportunities of the past, or the pressure that comes with success and the weight of expectations.Fernandez knocked off several prominent players on her way to the final, but she could not stop Raducanu.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesThe tired cliché in sports is that it is often a shame that one player has to lose. Given where Raducanu and Fernandez were just two weeks ago, as they emerged to captivate the tennis world and millions in their countries and elsewhere who rarely pay attention to the sport, it was simply impossible that either of them — or tennis itself — would come away from this experience having not won.There was a moment late in the match Saturday when the crowd of about 23,000 simultaneously chanted, “Let’s Go Emma!” and “Let’s Go Leylah!” with some fans alternating names with each round. When does that happen?They had taken such different routes to reach this stage, with Raducanu blazing through her solid but not quite spectacular opponents, and Fernandez surviving all those near-death experiences against Osaka, and then the three-time Grand Slam champion Angelique Kerber, and then Elina Svitolina and Aryna Sabalenka, two of the top five players in the world.Coming into the final, Raducanu spoke of treating it like just another match. Fernandez was not shy about talking about the opportunity that was before her. Her father, Jorge, who is her coach, said Saturday that he would talk to his daughter about how this was not just another match.“It’s a finals, all right,” Jorge Fernandez said in a teleconference from Florida because he did not accompany his daughter to the tournament, preferring that her mother, sister and fitness coach attend instead. “Let’s sweat it all out. Let’s make sure that no matter how it finishes, there are no regrets because we won’t get another crack at this again, if we’re fantastic, for another year.”As it turned out, the bigger winner turned out to be Raducanu, who got over her early jitters to grab the first lead at 2-0, only to see Fernandez quickly scramble back and knot the set at two games each. From there, the match settled into a tense rhythm with long games and long points.Raducanu and Fernandez had met once before, in a Wimbledon juniors match.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesWith Fernandez serving at 4-5, Raducanu tightened the vise with two killer crosscourt backhands to secure two set points. Fernandez would save those, as well as a third, but on the fourth one Raducanu fired a forehand down the line to take her 19th consecutive set.“I made too many mistakes in the crucial moments,” Fernandez said later. “This loss, I’m going to carry it for a very long time.”In the second set Fernandez was wobbly in the first points, then surged to a lead, then fell back, and it looked as if Raducanu was going to roll through, but each time Fernandez teetered on the edge, she came up with another scorching forehand, or stretched for a lob to extend the rally and get Raducanu to make one more untimely error. She would make 25 on the day. It happens when you are 18 and playing in the final of a Grand Slam for the first time, and it’s only your second Grand Slam.But Raducanu broke through in the pivotal sixth game, and the only question was whether her teenage nerves would be steely enough to handle the pressure of closing out the tournament.At first, they absolutely were as she raced to get two match points on Fernandez’s serve, but the error bug bit her again, and on they went to one of the strangest final games a Grand Slam final has ever seen, and to a deuce point that left blood dripping down Raducanu’s leg.It was a moment that might have panicked the most veteran of players, or caused one as inexperienced as Raducanu to try to rush to the finish. Two months ago, during what looked to everyone like a panic attack, she quit in the middle of her fourth round match at Wimbledon, telling the trainers she was having trouble breathing.Instead, as Raducanu faced break point on Saturday and a chance for Fernandez to get the set back on serve, she took a slow walk to her chair and called for the trainer. There, Raducanu got the bandage on her leg, absorbed what was unfolding and let it pass. With Fernandez questioning a tournament official about whether the injury really required a stoppage in play, Raducanu cooled herself with the air conditioning tube, then walked back onto the court a few minutes later, ready to meet her moment.When it was finished, Raducanu said something that so many have said before her, but no one ever truly believed, even those who have said it.“Every single player in the women’s draw has a shot at winning any tournament,” she said.After Saturday, no one could argue with her.The finalists embraced at the end of the match.Ben Solomon for The New York Times More

Continuing a streak that began in the qualifying draw, Emma Raducanu won her 19th consecutive set at this U.S. Open in style, but it was a battle like none have been before for her.The 18-year-old from Britain earned double set point with her opponent, Leylah Fernandez, serving at 4-5, hitting a sharply angled cross-court backhand return winner off a slow Fernandez second serve.Raducanu missed her first set point opportunity by pushing a backhand long, and couldn’t make a difficult backhand lob on the run on her second opportunity.Raducanu earned a third set point when Fernandez missed a forehand long, but missed her backhand return into the net.She got a fourth set point chance by stepping around her backhand and cracking a strong inside-out forehand which Fernandez could not corral with her forehand. The fourth time was the charm for Raducanu, who bent low to rifle a forehand winner down the line into the open court, ending the set after 58 minutes.Raducanu turned to the crowd and raised her arms, encouraging them to amplify their already ample applause for the display they have seen from both teenagers today.Fernandez left the court after the set for a break; Raducanu stayed in her seat and enjoyed some snacks. More

The most improbable women’s Grand Slam final in history features the unseeded teenagers Leylah Fernandez and Emma Raducanu.The U.S. Open women’s final is perhaps the most surprising Grand Slam final in tennis history, featuring two unseeded teenagers, including the first qualifier to play in a final in the Open era.Leylah Fernandez will face Emma Raducanu, and the teenagers — Fernandez turned 19 this week, and Raducanu is 18 — have been the sensations of a U.S. Open that began without many of the most significant stars in tennis. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Serena and Venus Williams were forced to skip the tournament with injuries. Fernandez, of Canada, and Raducanu, of Britain, have more than filled the void. Their tennis and infectious personalities have been nothing short of show stopping.How to watchSaturday, Sept. 11. 4 p.m. Eastern time. On ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app. In Canada on TSN and streaming on the TSN app.Raducanu took the long way, quickly.Ranked 150th, Raducanu had to play in the qualifying rounds of the U.S. Open a week before the main-draw tournament began, in order to secure her spot. Raducanu won three matches to reach the main draw, and then six more matches to reach the final, becoming the first player in history to reach a major final as a qualifier.While many players would look haggard after nine matches in one tournament, Raducanu looks hale and happy, helped by her incredible efficiency on court. Raducanu has won all nine of her matches in straight sets, never needing so much as a tiebreaker in any of the 18 sets. In only one set, in the second round of qualifying against Mariam Bolkvadze, did her opponent reach five games. Bolkvadze led with Raducanu serving at 4-5, 0-30, two points from taking the second set, only for Raducanu to reel off 12 straight points to end the match.Remarkably, despite playing three more matches, Raducanu has spent less time on court than Fernandez at this U.S. Open, totaling 11 hours and 34 minutes in nine matches, compared with Fernandez’s 12 hours and 45 minutes in six matches.Fernandez is a giant killer.Leylah Fernandez after winning her semifinal match against Aryna Sabalenka.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesWhile Raducanu has rolled, Fernandez has fought, beating some of the game’s toughest players in three-set battles. After winning her first two matches against the past quarterfinalists Ana Konjuh and Kaia Kanepi, Fernandez knocked out the defending champion, Naomi Osaka, in three sets in the third round. The third-seeded Osaka served for the match at 6-5 in the second set, but Fernandez broke and ran away with the second-set tiebreaker as Osaka unraveled.In the fourth round, Fernandez beat Angelique Kerber, the 2016 U.S. Open champion, in three sets. In the quarterfinals, Fernandez beat the fifth-seeded Elina Svitolina in a third-set tiebreaker. In the semifinals, Fernandez beat the second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka in three sets.“It has helped me open my eyes that I have no limit to my potential,” Fernandez said of her run. “I can go three sets against these players, I can play against these top players, and I can win against these top players.”Though Fernandez has paid a higher physical toll to reach the final, she will enter it far more battle tested. She has proved what she can do deep into a third set of an important match, while Raducanu’s response in those situations remains largely unknown. More

The teenagers, who meet in Saturday’s final, have illuminated this U.S. Open and transformed it into perhaps the most surprising women’s Grand Slam tournament of the Open era.It was no mean feat to come up with a tennis story that could compete with the first serious bid for a men’s singles Grand Slam in 52 years.But the women have somehow managed it in this mad and marvelous edition of the U.S. Open, or to be more precise, the teenagers have managed it.After knocking off their elders one by one by one, Emma Raducanu, 18, of Britain and Leylah Fernandez, 19, of Canada will now play in Saturday’s singles final.“I find it fascinating that literally the only way for the women’s draw to capture some focus away from Novak Djokovic chasing the most historic feat in tennis, the calendar-year Grand Slam, was to come up with something like a fairy tale,” said Pam Shriver, once a surprise U.S. Open finalist herself at age 16. “With all due respect, it couldn’t have been the No. 2 player and No. 10 player facing off, but this story is almost like the perfect complement to Djokovic going for history.”This will be the first all-teenage Grand Slam final since Serena Williams defeated Martina Hingis in 1999 at Flushing Meadows to win the first of her 23 major singles titles.It seems fitting, with Williams missing this tournament with a leg injury and soon to turn 40, that two young players have come along to generate a similar buzz of discovery.But this is not quite the same teenage scene. Williams and Hingis were already stars in 1999. Hingis was ranked No. 1 and seeded No. 1. Williams was seeded No. 7 and had been making headlines and waves with her older sister Venus for years.Fernandez and Raducanu were familiar only to tennis cognoscenti before arriving in New York. Fernandez is unseeded and ranked 73rd. Raducanu is ranked 150th, which meant that she had to make it through qualifying just to reach the main draw. Though she turned heads, particularly in Britain, by reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon in her Grand Slam singles debut this year, she seemed overwhelmed by the moment and the physical challenge and was unable to finish that fourth-round match against Ajla Tomljanovic because she had trouble breathing. But instead of that frightening experience holding her back, she has rebounded beautifully and has yet to drop a set in New York: not in three qualifying matches or her six main-draw matches against vastly more experienced players, including the new Olympic champion Belinda Bencic.Raducanu is now the first qualifier to reach a Grand Slam singles final, going one round further than the likes of John McEnroe.Before Wimbledon, Raducanu was only the 10th ranked player in her own country, but she will be British No. 1 on Monday and potentially the first British woman to win a major singles title since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977.Wade was watching inside Arthur Ashe Stadium late Thursday night as Raducanu fought off seven break points in her opening two service games and then stepped on the accelerator to defeat the No. 17 seed, Maria Sakkari, 6-1, 6-4.When Raducanu finished off her latest upset with an expertly timed forehand swing volley, she dropped her racket and put both hands on top of her head, a faraway look in her eyes.She was asked later how she would describe what she had accomplished so far.“A surprise,” she said. “Yeah, honestly I just can’t believe it. A shock. Crazy. All of the above. But it means a lot to be here in this situation. I wanted obviously to, like, be playing Grand Slams, but I didn’t know how soon that would be. To be in a Grand Slam final at this stage of my career, I have no words.”Not long before, Fernandez was asked to describe what she had accomplished so far after her much more suspenseful semifinal victory over the No. 2 seed, Aryna Sabalenka.“I’m just having fun,” she said. “I’m trying to produce something for the crowd to enjoy. I’m glad that whatever I’m doing on court, the fans are loving it, and I’m loving it too. We’ll say it’s magical.”The word applies to both players’ runs to the final, but their paths to this rarefied moment have been both remarkably similar and remarkably different. Both were born in Canada, but though Raducanu still holds a Canadian passport, she left with her parents to live in London when she was 2. Both also grew up in multicultural households. Raducanu’s father is Romanian; her mother is Chinese. Fernandez’s father, Jorge, also her coach, was born in Ecuador before immigrating to Canada at age 4 with his parents, and Fernandez’s mother was born in Canada to parents who immigrated from the Philippines.But Fernandez’s family has had significant financial challenges and hardships, with her mother leaving Canada to work in California for several years during Fernandez’s youth to better support the family.“Those few years have been definitely hard for me, because I needed a mom,” Fernandez said. “I needed someone to be there for me through the age of 10 to 13. I’ve barely seen her at that time. Every time I saw her, it was like seeing a stranger but at the same time someone so familiar.”Though Tennis Canada has provided some support for Fernandez’s tennis, money has often been tight, her father said.Fernandez said she also had faced many doubts in her early career about her potential. She remembered a teacher in Canada telling her to stop playing tennis and just focus on her studies because she would “never make it.”“Now I’m laughing,” she said. “I’m just glad that she told me that because every day I have that phrase in my head saying that I’m going to keep going. I’m going to push through, and I’m going to prove to her everything that I’ve dreamed of, I’m going to achieve.”She is off to a fine start in New York after a summer of underwhelming results and after never advancing past the third round in her first six Grand Slam tournaments.Raducanu, whose parents work in finance, does not appear to be fueled by a desire to quiet the skeptics and, unlike Fernandez, she was not firmly set on being a professional tennis player until recently.“Maybe two years ago,” she said. “I always had my education as a backup. I was doing it alongside my tennis. I had options. I still do, but obviously I’m a hundred percent in my tennis now.”Raducanu and Fernandez met as juniors, and Raducanu said they connected over their Canadian roots. But until now their most significant previous match was in the second round of the Wimbledon junior tournament in 2018.They will meet again on Saturday with rather more at stake in the first U.S. Open women’s final between unseeded players.Picking a winner looks like a fool’s errand in light of both players’ inexperience at this level. Raducanu has been the more dominant force, dispatching opponents with powerful precision, and is tied for second in the tournament in the percentage of return games won and percentage of service games won. Fernandez has had to scrap, hustle and believe through four straight three setters. But Fernandez also has had a tougher draw: defeating two former No. 1 players in Naomi Osaka and Angelique Kerber, the former WTA Finals champ Elina Svitolina and the imposing Sabalenka.Fernandez’s ability to beat that many quality players in taut, tight matches is a tribute to her resolve, adaptability and talent. She is a left-hander, and her serve, particularly her first serve, has been very effective. She has been selectively and effectively bold, hitting more return winners (22) than any player in this Open. Sabalenka overwhelmed her early on Thursday but Fernandez then adjusted to the pace and reeled her in, exchanging low baseline bolts at times and abruptly changing pace with drop shots at others.As tempting as it is to consider this the arrival of two new top-tier players, the recent history of women’s tennis argues for more restraint. The game has been producing new contenders at a rapid clip. Since the start of 2015, there will have been 13 first-time Grand Slam singles champions, with Raducanu or Fernandez set to be the 14th. Some of those champions have established themselves as No. 1 players, like Osaka and Ashleigh Barty. But others have fallen back like Sloane Stephens and Jelena Ostapenko.“On the women’s side in recent times we just don’t know what will happen after they have this success,” Shriver said. “For this particular tournament, it’s incredible, but for it to pay dividends in the long run, we need to see them in the quarters, semis and finals. It would be great, but we have got to be patient because of the way things could be derailed for one or both after this because of the way it changes a teenager’s life. I certainly understand that, but for now, let’s just enjoy it.”That sounds like the right approach. The teenagers’ joy has been a delight to behold as they have taken turns illuminating this U.S. Open and transforming it into perhaps the most surprising women’s Grand Slam tournament of the Open era.Riding back from Queens to Manhattan well after midnight on Friday, the bus passed by a huge U.S. Open billboard of Serena Williams featuring the words “The Return of Amazing.”Even without Williams at Flushing Meadows this year, the words have still rung true. More