Fernandez, Leylah (2002- )

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      Leylah Fernandez Advances to the U.S. Open Final

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      The 19-year-old Canadian, who won 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-4, becomes the youngest singles finalist at the U.S. Open since Serena Williams advanced at age 17 in 1999.Leylah Fernandez, the Canadian teen sensation, cruised into the finals of the U.S. Open Thursday night, knocking off Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus with an upset that might have been surprising had she not been doing this for the better part of a week.With Steve Nash, the N.B.A. Hall of Famer and Nets coach watching from her box, and all of Canada and seemingly all of New York in her corner, Fernandez, ranked 73rd, notched her fourth consecutive win over one of the world’s top-20 players. Her stunning run has included victories over the second, third, fifth and 16th seeded players in the tournament. She beat Naomi Osaka and Angelique Kerber, the winners of a combined seven Grand Slam singles titles, then knocked off Elina Svitolina, who is considered one of the best players never to have won a Grand Slam tournament.Then came Sabalenka, one of the world’s biggest hitters and its second-ranked player. At 23, she appeared poised this year to take the next step in her development. She has never made a Grand Slam final but lost in the semifinals at Wimbledon and backed that up with another trip to the final four at the U.S. Open.Aryna Sabalenka serving during the match.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesIn Fernandez, though, Sabalenka ran into a player who seems to have convinced herself that she cannot be beaten, that if she can just keep getting the ball back over the net with her brand of power and spin and guile, somehow the match will break her way.It took two hours and 21 minutes for that moment to come, when she finished off a 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-4 win, thanks to two ill-timed double faults from Sabalenka and one last error sailing off the court.“I don’t know how I did that,” Fernandez said, when asked how she had pulled it all off during her on-court interview moments after the final point made the crowd explode one last time.Fernandez became the second Canadian teenager in three years to make the final of the U.S. Open, following in the footsteps of Bianca Andreescu, who beat Serena Williams to win the championship in 2019.Like Andreescu, Fernandez has shot to the top seemingly out of nowhere. Though she had been inching her way up the rankings for the past three years, she had given little indication that she was on the verge of a breakthrough of this magnitude.Fernandez came out jittery, lost her serve and was down 3-0 in the first set. Before long though, she had settled down and proved to be the perfect foil for Sabalenka’s high-octane game that leaves little margin for error. When Sabalenka doesn’t connect, she beats balls into the bottom half of the net or watches them sail five and six feet beyond the baseline, then flails her arms in frustration.There was plenty of that on Thursday evening at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Sabalenka seemed to be making steady progress with a 4-2 lead in the first set, but then made a series of errors to let Fernandez back into the set, including a double fault on game point.At the crucial moment of the first-set tiebreaker, with Fernandez holding a 4-3 lead, Sabalenka missed badly on an easy overhead, double-faulted, then bounced a Fernandez serve on set point into the net.The second set looked like it was going to be a near carbon copy of the first. An early break for Sabalenka, then sloppiness to let Fernandez back into the frame. But then Fernandez cracked in the ninth game, giving Sabalenka a chance to serve out the set. She whirled her arms, begging for some support from the pro-Fernandez crowd.Fans getting into the match as it began to get close.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesOn to the third set they went, trading service games into midway point, when Fernandez, holding a 3-2 lead, let Sabalenka hit herself into trouble, then blocked one of Sabalenka’s hardest serves of the night and watched Sabalenka’s shot float long. But Fernandez struggled with the prosperity, letting Sabalenka break her right back, and a game later knot the score at 4-4.But Fernandez stayed cool, and a game later let Sabalenka take care of business for her. Eventually, things work out for this teenager, at least at this U.S. Open.She will play the winner of the match between Emma Raducanu of Britain and Maria Sakkari of Greece in the final Saturday afternoon. More

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      Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime and Leylah Fernandez Arrive at U.S. Open

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      The semifinalists are part of a new wave of Canadian tennis stars who are changing the image of the game in their country and reflecting its increased diversity.Canada’s tennis success story continues to add chapters at breakneck pace with Felix Auger-Aliassime and Leylah Fernandez having advanced to the semifinals of the U.S. Open for the first time in their short careers.Auger-Aliassime, 21, and Fernandez, 19, are part of a new wave of Canadian tennis stars who are changing the image of the game in their country, reflecting its increased diversity.Their breakthrough in New York marks the first time Canada has had two singles semifinalists at the U.S. Open. It comes after other Canadian success at Grand Slams: Bianca Andreescu won the 2019 U.S. Open women’s singles title and Denis Shapovalov reached the men’s semifinals at Wimbledon this year.It remains a surprising tale. Canada, with its famously rugged winters, has a shortage of indoor courts and a dearth of junior players compared with more established tennis nations like the United States, France and Germany. Canada’s best athletes still tend to gravitate to ice hockey, soccer and other activities.The four young Canadian tennis stars all have at least one immigrant parent. Auger-Aliassime and Fernandez were born and raised in Montreal.“It’s great for Canada, great for Quebec,” Auger-Aliassime said on Tuesday. “I never thought a day like this would come: a little girl and a little boy from Montreal both at the same time in the semifinals of the U.S. Open. It’s special for us. I hope the people back home appreciate the moment also. We do a lot.”Auger-Aliassime is biracial. His mother, Marie Auger, is French Canadian, and his father, Sam Aliassime, immigrated to Canada from Togo. Fernandez’s mother, Irene, was born in Toronto to parents originally from the Philippines. Fernandez’s father and coach, Jorge, immigrated to Canada from Ecuador at age 4 with his family.Andreescu, born near Toronto, is the only child of Romanian immigrants. Shapovalov, born in Tel Aviv, is the son of a Russian father and Ukrainian mother.Auger-Aliassume talking with Carlos Alcaraz after Alcaraz retired in the second set of their quarterfinal match.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times“I think we all share that immigrant story,” Andreescu said in a recent interview. “I can definitely relate to a lot of people in Canada, because I think it’s very multicultural, and I think we can all be an inspiration that way.”Sports remain an on-ramp to success in many cultures for immigrant families, and professional tennis is full of examples. The retired American star Andre Agassi is the son of an Iranian Olympic boxer; Michael Chang, another retired American star, is the son of immigrants from Taiwan. Alexander Zverev, a semifinalist at this year’s U.S. Open, was born in Germany to Russian parents.“I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all,” Jorge Fernandez said in an interview on Wednesday. “Immigrant families bring a lot of hard work with them to the court. They bring a lot of toughness and willingness to sacrifice. They may not know anything about the sport, but they know what it means to work hard.”Jorge Fernandez was a professional soccer player, not a competitive tennis player, and has taught himself about the game, much like Richard Williams, the father of Serena and Venus Williams. Auger-Aliassime’s father is a tennis coach who has an academy in Quebec City.Jorge Fernandez said he and Sam Aliassime would compare notes and exchange ideas as they watched their children practice and compete in Montreal.“We would share our experiences, our hopes and frustrations,” Fernandez said. “I think both being immigrants, we have a lot in common.”But while Jorge Fernandez has remained his daughter’s primary coach, moving the family to Florida for training purposes, Sam Aliassime ceded the coaching role to others. Auger-Aliassime has trained since his early teens with Tennis Canada, the sport’s national governing body. His coaches were former professionals like Frédéric Niemeyer and the Frenchmen Guillaume Marx and Frédéric Fontang.Fontang remains his primary coach, and in December, Auger-Aliassime also began working with Toni Nadal, Rafael Nadal’s uncle and former coach. Toni Nadal has been in Auger-Aliassime’s corner and player box in New York as a coaching consultant.“I think he’s helped me improve maybe the consistency of my game, the quality of my movement, my focus,” said Auger-Aliassime, who will face No. 2 seed Daniil Medvedev on Friday. “On one part you have Frédéric, my main coach, who has been with me since I’m very young and that knows every aspect of myself and my game. He has the long-term vision for me. You have Toni that has been in the places that we want to go one day, winning these big tournaments, being No. 1 in the world. I think he brings that belief that this is something doable.”Canadian players also have been showing each other what is possible. Eugenie Bouchard was ranked as high as No. 5 in 2014, reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open and French Open and the final of Wimbledon. Big-serving Milos Raonic, born in Montenegro to immigrant parents, was ranked as high as No. 3 in 2016, defeating Roger Federer at Wimbledon before losing in the final to Andy Murray.“I think they’re all pushing each other, and I think that’s part of it,” said Sylvain Bruneau, the former coach of Bouchard and Andreescu, who is the director of women’s professional tennis at Tennis Canada. “I think Genie helped Bianca to do well by doing what she did and showing that you can be Canadian and be at a national tennis center and develop your game there and have some success. And I think Bianca has done that for Leylah. And I know there is this feeling that everything can be achieved. Fifteen years ago, we wanted to become a tennis nation and to get really serious about development. Big resources were put in place, and I think we are now seeing the benefits.”Fernandez during her quarterfinal victory.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesTennis Canada has not helped all the players to the same degree. Shapovalov and Fernandez have often worked independently, but Michael Downey, the president of Tennis Canada, said the federation has provided some level of support — be it financial or in the form of wild cards and training opportunities — to all four of its young stars.“I think all this just reinforces that there is no one way for a great player to be developed,” Downey said in an interview on Wednesday. “As a federation we are there as a facilitator whether that’s developing hands-on with Felix or helping in other ways.”The pandemic has been a challenge. The National Bank Open tennis tournament remains Tennis Canada’s major source of funding, and the men’s and women’s events were both canceled last year, leading to a deficit of 8 million Canadian dollars, according to Downey.“That is a lot of money to a small federation,” Downey said. “We didn’t have the kind of reserves to manage us through that kind of loss.”There were layoffs and major cutbacks in the player development program, and the federation took out a loan of 20 million Canadian dollars. But the National Bank Open was staged this year with limited attendance, and Downey said Tennis Canada will make a profit this year.“That will make it an easier road for us to 2022 and 2023,” he said. “But at the end of the day, part of the reason we’re doing better financially is we haven’t been investing in tennis development. We’re only spending at 40 percent of what we normally spend, and we really want to ratchet it back up.”Downey, like the Canadian players, is well aware that this is a breakthrough moment for tennis in Canada, one that it is important not to squander.A sign of the times is that while this is the first year that Canada has had two U.S. Open singles semifinalists, this is the first time that the United States, the traditional tennis powerhouse, did not even have a quarterfinalist in singles.“Who could ever have imagined that?” Bruneau said.David Waldstein More

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      For Raducanu and Fernandez, the Magical Run Goes On and On

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      The teenagers from Britain and Canada have advanced to the semifinals at the U.S. Open. (The run certainly surprised Emma Raducanu, who had a flight home booked after the qualifying tournament.)There they go again.For the second consecutive day at the U.S. Open — or maybe it was the fifth, or the 10th, depending on when the counting started — a teenage woman did the thing she was not supposed to do.Just as Leylah Fernandez of Canada did on Tuesday, Emma Raducanu of Britain bulldozed her way through a player who had every right to believe the day would belong to her, disposing of 11th-seeded Belinda Bencic of Switzerland, 6-3, 6-4, in 82 minutes, and giving the U.S. Open two semifinalists who are unable to celebrate their success legally with an alcoholic beverage.How absurd is all of this? Consider that Raducanu is ranked 150th in the world and played three qualifying matches just to secure a spot in the main draw. She clearly did not expect to make it: She had booked a flight home for immediately after the qualifying tournament.She continues to be as shocked by her success as anyone.“I didn’t expect to be here at all,” Raducanu said after she became the first qualifier to make it to the U.S. Open semifinals in the Open era. “Out there on the court today, I was saying to myself, ‘This could be the last time you play on Ashe, so might as well just go for it and enjoy everything.’”As impressive and surprising as Raducanu has been in her first U.S. Open, until Wednesday she had yet to beat a seeded player. Fernandez had. She entered her quarterfinal on Tuesday after beating the defending women’s champion, Naomi Osaka, and the German veteran Angelique Kerber, a former world No. 1 and three-time Grand Slam tournament champion. Fernandez, ranked 73rd, backed up those wins with a stirring three-set upset of fifth-seeded Elina Svitolina of Ukraine.Across the net from Raducanu on Wednesday stood Bencic, the recently crowned Olympic gold medalist, a smooth and powerful 24-year-old from Switzerland who has been a mainstay of the top 20 the past three years, rising as high as fourth in the world rankings in February 2020.Not a problem. Just as she did in her fourth-round match, Raducanu started with a minor hiccup, losing the first game she served and going down, 0-2, in the first set. But she had her way with Bencic from there. By the end of the sixth game she was even. By the end of the ninth, she had won the first set.She broke Bencic in the fifth game of the second set and largely cruised from there, making a game that she has had little experience with at the top level of the sport look easy. Belinda Bencic returned a shot against Raducanu during their match.Elsa/Getty ImagesUnlike Fernandez, who has specialized in a form of tennis that resembles opera — long afternoons and evenings filled with wild swings and rousing moments of drama — Raducanu’s New York experience has been a series of routine days at the office, of making players with far more experience than she has look bad at tennis.“I just wish I could have made it a little bit harder and played better or played more my game,” a disappointed Bencic said after the match.Raducanu does not do tennis attrition. She plays as though she knows the hours after her matches will be filled with signing autographs, taking selfies with a legion of fans and charming an unrelenting beast known as the British sports media. She finishes matters on the court quickly.Including the qualifying tournament, she has played eight matches on this trip to New York and has yet to drop a set. It is a bizarrely charmed run. On match point against Bencic, she smacked a one shot off the rim of her racket, then watched it loop into the back corner of the court.“She’s problem solving, adjusting her game, playing on her terms, and she has a big enough game to just beat people,” Tim Henman, the former British star who does tennis commentary for Amazon Video, said of Raducanu.On the surface, Fernandez and Raducanu might appear similar. Teenage women — they were both 18 until Fernandez turned 19 on Monday — they have spent the past 10 days capturing the hearts and imaginations of New York’s boisterous and emotional crowds with an ease that Novak Djokovic can only dream of. They have been competing in the same junior level tournaments for years.Also, both are the product of mixed-race parents — Raducanu’s father is Romanian and her mother is Chinese, while Fernandez’s father is from Ecuador and her mother is Filipino. Their families have since moved from the countries where their prodigies were born. Raducanu was born in Canada but lives in England. Fernandez spent much of her childhood in Montreal but lives and trains in Florida.The similarities largely end there.Raducanu is listed at 5 feet 7 inches, but presents as far more imposing than that. She is long and lean and glides across the court, staying low to the ground, sometimes scraping her knees on the court as she squats to rescue a backhand in the flashy style of the retired Polish player Agnieszka Radwanska.She often rifles the ball within inches of the net to near the baseline on the other side, then pushes forward, hunting for the first chance to end the point as quickly as she can. She does not hit four shots to set up the winner on the fifth one. If there is a hint of an opening she grabs it, winding up and using the fluid leverage of those long limbs to whip a shot at the corner of the court.Fernandez is listed at 5-6, but the power she generates seems like a mystery of tennis physics. She can crank her serve into triple digits, and taking her spot on the baseline, which she rarely abandons, she can fire lasers, especially off her forehand, even though she barely takes a backswing.Raducanu cannot stop saying how shocked she is by her success. Fernandez said she expected to beat Osaka as soon as she walked onto the court. After her win over Kerber she said she had long been confident that her game would bring her to this level.Raducanu serving during her quarterfinal win.Justin Lane/EPA, via ShutterstockRaducanu has spent the past years balancing school and tennis, attending the Newstead Wood School in London, and took her university admission exams earlier this year, around the same time she was making her debut in top-level tournaments on the women’s tour. She got into Wimbledon on a wild card that she earned with a couple of wins at a lower-tier tournament in Nottingham in June.Fernandez has been all about tennis for years. This is her seventh Grand Slam tournament.Raducanu’s parents work in finance. They are taking in her success from home in England, unable to travel to the United States without a special exemption that takes several weeks to process and did not seem as if it would have been worthwhile. She said she had spoken to them only sparingly lately. Raducanu joked that they “ghosted” her when she was trying to text them after her match on Monday.During the last two years she has worked with a series of coaches in the British tennis aristocracy, including Nigel Sears, the father-in-law of Andy Murray.Fernandez’s mother has been courtside at all her matches. Her father, Jorge, is also her coach, and he speaks with her every day, sending her game plans for her next match. She has developed largely without the involvement of Canada’s national tennis program.Now, it’s on to the rarefied ground of the semifinals of a Grand Slam. Fernandez will face Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, the No. 2 seed. Raducanu will face the winner of Wednesday night’s match between Maria Sakkari of Greece and Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic.After that, win or lose, the klieg lights that always follow the kind of breakout performances Raducanu and Fernandez have achieved will undoubtedly arrive, an experience that has swallowed plenty of teen phenoms whole as their lives begin to fill with obligations to sponsors and to live up to the expectations that their stirring performances have wrought.“I just really hope that everyone will protect them,” Bencic said of Fernandez and Raducanu, noting how good for tennis their success could be. “Not try to kind of, not destroy but, put so much pressure and so much hype around them so it just gets too much.”That is not how it usually goes, but for now, it’s nice to think it might. More

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      The Teenagers Are Taking Over Tennis. That Might Not End Well.

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      The U.S. Open play of Leylah Fernandez, Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu has been exhilarating. But if the past is prelude, rough seas are ahead.It has been quite a run for the teenagers at the U.S. Open, especially a bright-eyed and beguiling troika that has managed to turn the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center into its personal playground.Like young stockbrokers who have yet to see a bear market, Emma Raducanu, Leylah Fernandez and Carlos Alcaraz are experiencing the best of tennis life: match after match of effusive crowds that chant their names and ask for selfies, passing shots that nick the back of the line, and the freedom of swinging their rackets on a stage where they cannot lose, because no one was counting on them to win in the first place.And yet, they do not have to look far to see how quickly it can all go off the rails.“Buckle up, it’s a long ride,” Shelby Rogers, the veteran American and Raducanu’s latest casualty, said Sunday when asked what advice she could offer the trio of teenagers for when their U.S. Open runs end.Naomi Osaka had just emerged from her teens three years ago when she upset Serena Williams to win this tournament. Three years, three Grand Slam titles, nearly $20 million in prize money and tens of millions more in sponsorships later, Osaka’s tournament ended this time with a loss to Fernandez followed by a tearful announcement that she will take an indefinite leave from tennis. Iga Swiatek, the Polish star who won the 2020 French Open at 19 without losing a set, spent much of her upset loss Monday against Belinda Bencic of Switzerland screaming at her coach and the sports psychologist who travels with her.By now it is accepted wisdom that tennis has a tendency to eat its young like few other sports. Managing life as a young star on the tennis tour is a physical and mental test that trips up nearly every player at some point, especially those who break through early and then are suddenly expected to compete at the highest level nearly every time they take the court.Emma Raducanu siged autographs and took selfies after defeating Sara Sorribes Tormo over the weekend.Elsa/Getty ImagesA ranking and seeding system places a number next to their name, letting them and the world know in the starkest way who should win any given match. Guaranteed payments from sponsors can relieve the burden of playing for your next meal or plane ticket. However, those contracts are often laden with incentive bonuses for winning tournaments and climbing the rankings. There is an implicit understanding that the contract will, at best, be reduced and at worst not be renewed if players don’t maintain a certain level of proficiency.The attention, from millions of fans but also from family, cuts both ways, sports psychologists say, especially in a sport that has so many parent coaches. Fernandez’s mother has had a front-row seat for her daughter’s upsets of Osaka and Angelique Kerber, the former world No. 1. She leaned over the rails and screamed when Fernandez prevailed on the biggest points. Success naturally brings that kind of enthusiasm but can also produce a fear that the love will vanish if the winning stops.Fernandez’s father, Jorge, doubles as her coach. He is at home in Florida with her younger sister, she said, but he calls every day with a game plan for the next match, “just telling me what to do in the day before, and then he trusts in me and in my game, that I’m going to execute it as much as I can.”They may not be exhibiting poise under pressure as much as they are playing without pressure, which allows them to swing freely without the fear of not living up to expectations.Carlos Alcaraz and Leylah Fernandez continued to impress with their play into the second week at the U.S. Open.Frank Franklin II/Associated PressJohn Minchillo/Associated Press“I think it’s just the young people” who can play this way, Kerber said Sunday after Fernandez bested her in three sets with blistering forehands and fearless serves at the corners of the service box. Kerber, 33, has won three Grand Slam titles and was ranked No. 1 as recently as 2017. For several years she has battled injuries, inconsistency and the idea that she should still be at the top of the sport.“Playing completely without pressure, in this position, it’s impossible, but I wish,” she said.Oddly, for much of the past decade, players, coaches and tennis officials generally accepted that the sport had moved beyond teenagers. Equipment that allowed for powerful shots from previously impossible angles extended points and matches, accentuating the importance of mature strength and conditioning to a degree that made it too hard for teenagers to compete at the top level of the game, especially on the men’s side.Then Coco Gauff, the rising American, started winning matches at Wimbledon in 2019, when she was just 15. Now a collection of her physically advanced peers are making their mark.Raducanu beat Rogers in her debut in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday. On Tuesday, Fernandez plays Elina Svitolina of Ukraine in the quarterfinals, while Alcaraz takes on Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada.Raducanu, who is in her first summer of playing top level competitions, impressed once again Monday. She dropped the first two games, then reeled off 11 of the next 12 games and won 6-2, 6-1, showing off her exquisite combination of graceful athleticism and smooth, lacing groundstrokes. She has lost a combined total of just four games in her last two matches. When Rogers’ last ball settled into the net, Raducanu dropped her racket, fell to her knees and covered her eyes in disbelief.Young fans waited for Fernandez after her match on Sunday.Elsa/Getty ImagesMartin Blackman, the general manager for player development at the United States Tennis Association, said in recent years the better, and more physically developed, older teenagers had begun to shun junior tournaments, instead cutting their teeth in low-level professional events, while still finding a balance between competition, training and rest.“So they come in under the radar and then they emerge on the big stage,” he said.There is nothing that can come close to guaranteeing that they will not succumb to the challenges of the game — being on the road for months on end, living up to rising expectations, and dealing with the inevitable losses and physical ailments.“It is a perilous prospect,” said David Law, a tennis commentator for the BBC who previously worked for ATP, said Sunday as he settled in for Raducanu’s match. “It can go wrong. We’ve seen it go wrong.”Law does not have to look far to be reminded of that. One of his BBC colleagues is Laura Robson, who at 18 made the fourth round of the U.S. Open in 2012 with wins over Kim Clijsters, one of the top players in the world, and Li Na, the Chinese star. She appeared on her way to greatness. Two years later she was battling a wrist injury from which she would never fully recover.Raducanu during her upset win on Monday.Danielle Parhizkaran/USA Today Sports, via ReutersFrances Tiafoe, the 23-year-old American, spoke Sunday night after his fourth-round loss to Auger-Aliassime about his efforts to work his way back from the hype surrounding his quick rise into the top 50 in 2018, when he was seen as the savior of American men’s tennis.“I thought I was just going to just keep going,” he said. “It doesn’t work like that. Same work you did to get up there, the same work you need to keep going, keep working harder.”Despite the cautionary tales, it is nearly impossible not to be swept up in the excitement of watching new talent burst onto the scene at one of the biggest showcases in sports. It is a breathless experience that tennis has long thrived on.Alcaraz, a Spaniard already burdened with the nickname “the Next Rafa,” a reference to his countryman, the 20-time Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal, said he knows that he has become a subject of fascination back home over the past few days.“I’m trying not to think about this,” he said Sunday after beating Peter Gojowczyk of Germany in the fourth round, his second consecutive five-set win. “Just focus on New York, on every day here.”That is a good start, said Mary Carillo, the tennis commentator and former Grand Slam doubles champion. Carillo has seen tennis crack so many rising stars, from Andrea Jaeger, who tanked matches, to Mardy Fish, who battled anxiety and mental illness at the peak of his career. Her heart sinks every time she sees players checking their phones for what is being said about them on social media as soon as they walk off the court.Survival, she said, comes down to the stuff we learn in kindergarten: Get enough sleep; don’t talk to strangers; don’t listen to what they say about you; stay away from bad people.“You really better make sure you have the right people on your ball club,” Carillo said. “People who understand your values, your ambitions, how much you can take and most importantly when you need some time to step away.” More

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      Leylah Fernandez Advances to U.S. Open Quarterfinals

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      On the eve of her 19th birthday, the young Canadian continued her magical run, beating Angelique Kerber 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2. She is exactly where she planned to be.Less than a week ago, few casual tennis fans knew even a little, if anything, about Leylah Fernandez. When she stunned Naomi Osaka in the third round of the U.S. Open, many were more focused on the player who lost than on the player who won.Those same people wondered if the precocious teenager from Canada had benefited from Osaka’s poor form that night.But after storming back to beat the more dependable and in-form Angelique Kerber in the fourth round on Sunday, Fernandez — with her natural exuberance, ubiquitous smile and fist raised high in the air — has become the sensation of the this year’s Open.“I think she can go really far in the next few years,” Kerber said after the match.There is a chance she could go really far in just the next few days. Fernandez is playing the best tennis of her young career, blasting forehand winners and exuding the kind of joyous fighting spirit and confidence that has captivated New York fans during a wild three-day run.With a raucous crowd packed into Louis Armstrong Stadium chanting her name, Fernandez lost the first set on Sunday and was down a service break in the second before she outlasted Kerber, 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2, less than 12 hours before turning 19.She was delighted. She was proud. She raised her arms in the air and flashed her magnetic smile. But don’t think that she is shocked by her own success, even if the rest of the tennis world is.“I expected that one day my tennis game is going to come through and that I’m going to be on the big stage in front of a big crowd playing against big players, and also getting the wins,” she said. “I’m not surprised of anything that’s happening right now.”Fernandez, the latest Canadian to burst onto the scene, said she would celebrate her win with her family and her fitness coach, Duglas Cordero, at the same Italian restaurant they have dined at every night of the tournament. Her birthday celebration on Monday will include a third-round doubles match alongside Erin Routliffe of New Zealand.But while she looks ahead, Fernandez can also reflect on this: While she was still just 18, she took down Osaka, the No. 3 seed and defending champion, and Kerber, the No. 16 seed and 2016 U.S. Open champion, all in less than 48 hours. Together, those two champions own seven major titles (Osaka has four), but for the left-handed Fernandez, they were just two players who required unique tactical approaches.“The biggest difference is that one is a left-hander, and the other one is a right-handed player,” she said. “I just approached the matches the same.”Now she must toggle back to another right-hander. Fernandez’s opponent in the quarterfinal stage is No. 5 Elina Svitolina, who had no trouble dispatching No. 12 Simona Halep, 6-3, 6-3, in 76 minutes in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sunday.Fernandez, who was born and grew up in Montreal, became the first Canadian into the quarterfinal stage this year. No. 6 Bianca Andreescu, from Toronto and the 2019 champion, will play No. 17 Maria Sakkari of Greece in the fourth round Monday night.But even as the stakes steadily increase, Fernandez has shown no fear on court during her march into the second week of what is arguably the biggest tennis tournament of them all. Perhaps it is because she is too young to know any better.“I remember the feeling really well,” Kerber, 33, said. “I mean, yeah, it’s a few years ago. But of course, she has no pressure.”Though she lost, Angelique Kerber heaped praise on Fernandez after the match.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersTrailing by a set and down a break in the second, Fernandez flipped the momentum of the match on its head when she broke back to make it 4-4, taking the ball out of the air and ripping a backhand cross-court winner. Up went her fist and the fans erupted.In the tiebreaker, Fernandez went ahead 5-1 and the fans, who were streaming into the stadium as word spread that she was putting up another good fight, began chanting, “Let’s Go Ley-lah,” as if she were De-rek Je-ter.Kerber fought back to make it 5-4, but then Fernandez reached for a Kerber serve out wide and ripped a forehand winner down the line from outside the court back into it — a shot so precise, so powerful and so bold that it elicited a racket clap of appreciation from Kerber.Two points later, Fernandez forced Kerber so far wide that she could not get the ball back safely into the court. Again, Fernandez’s arms went up in celebration and the fans roared their approval. Fernandez carried the momentum into the third set, where she finished the job.When she won the final point, the audience exploded and jumped to their feet as one with a deafening cheer for their newly-adopted favorite young star-in-the-making.“I was just enjoying every moment of it,” Fernandez said. “Honestly, the crowd has been amazing, so thanks to them I was able to win.”But she is not the only teenager making a mark at this year’s event. Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, 18, upset No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas and then beat Germany’s Peter Gojowczyk, 5-7, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2, 6-0, on Sunday to reach a quarterfinal. Also, the British 18-year-old Emma Raducanu will play Shelby Rogers in the fourth round on Monday.Fernandez said she remembered the first time she saw Alcaraz in the junior circuit and thought she was watching the reincarnation of a right-handed Rafael Nadal.“Seeing all these teenagers, these youngsters doing so great at the U.S. Open and the other tournaments, too, is eye-opening,” she said.She called herself a “happy-go-lucky” kid who has always found joy in whatever she does. The fans have fed off that energy, and she has fed off theirs. Perhaps one day, after many years on the tour, when she is 33 like Kerber, she will lose some of her youthful glee.What Fernandez enjoys now is a special, singular feeling, one that Kerber remembers well, and said is almost impossible to recapture.“I think it’s just for young people,” Kerber said. More

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      What to Watch on Sunday at the U.S. Open

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      Barbora Krejcikova and Garbiñe Muguruza meet in a battle of players ranked in the top 10 in the world. Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime plays Frances Tiafoe.How to watch: From noon to 6 p.m. Eastern time on ESPN, 7 to 11 p.m. on ESPN2, and streaming on the ESPN app. In Canada, on TSN from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and streaming on TSN.ca and the TSN app.Matches to keep an eye on.Because of the number of matches cycling through courts, the times for individual matchups are estimates and may fluctuate based on when earlier play is completed. All times are Eastern.ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM | NoonElina Svitolina vs. Simona HalepElina Svitolina, the fifth seed, has never been past the semifinals of a Grand Slam event, while Simona Halep, the 12th seed, has won two major titles on the “natural surfaces,” grass and red clay. The two stars have met nine times on tour, and Svitolina holds a slight edge, with five victories. Although both missed out on the U.S. Open last year, they have had plenty of experience in Arthur Ashe Stadium and will be sure to provide a wonderful match to start the day.ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM | 7 p.m.Felix Auger-Aliassime vs. Frances TiafoeOn Friday night, both Felix Auger-Aliassime and Frances Tiafoe battled opponents for five sets under the lights of the two main stadiums at Flushing Meadows. Tiafoe upset the fifth seed, Andrey Rublev, in a tight match; Tiafoe won 150 points, while Rublev won 148, and every other stat line provided similar margins. Auger-Aliassime pushed past Roberto Bautista Agut, the 18th seed, riding behind a dominant service performance that included 27 aces. As the two heavy hitters face off, viewers can expect an explosive match under the lights.ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM | 8 p.m.Barbora Krejcikova vs. Garbiñe MuguruzaThe WTA tour has been defined by a lack of predictability. New stars appear, and consistent champions struggle through major events. In contrast, this year’s U.S. Open has been a much more favorite-friendly venue. Today’s match between Barbora Krejcikova and Garbiñe Muguruza will be the first since the 2020 Australian Open played between top 10 players at a major. Krejcikova won the French Open this year, and Muguruza has won two Grand Slam events, making this a particularly well-matched pair; neither will be hindered by the nerves that can accompany a deep run at a major tournament.Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain playing in a first-round match on Monday.Elsa/Getty ImagesLouis Armstrong STADIUM | 1 p.m.Leylah Fernandez vs. Angelique KerberLeylah Fernandez knocked out Naomi Osaka in a three-set battle on Friday night, outlasting the defending champion. Fernandez won her first WTA title on hard courts at the Monterrey Open in March and has backed up her breakthrough year with fearless ball striking.Angelique Kerber, a three-time major champion, reached the semifinals at Wimbledon, her first time past the fourth round of a major since her victory at Wimbledon in 2018. Kerber has faced tough opposition through the first three rounds but has looked thoroughly in control, using her counterpunching style of play to push around more aggressive opponents.Sleeper match of the day.Grandstand | 5 p.m.Carlos Alcaraz Garfia vs. Peter GojowczykPeter Gojowczyk, ranked No. 141, upset Ugo Humbert, the 23rd seed, in the first round after a grueling set of qualifying matches to get into the main draw. Having never been past the second round of a Grand Slam event, even with 17 main draw appearances, Gojowczyk is flying in rarefied air.Carlos Alcaraz Garfia broke into the public consciousness on Friday after a career-defining upset over the third seed, Stefanos Tsitsipas. The 18-year-old Alcaraz played a near-perfect match to reach the fourth round of a major event for the first time, using his flat baseline shots to power past Tsitsipas, a former ATP Tour Finals champion.As this is the only main draw singles match out on the grounds today, expect New York fans to pull for either the veteran underdog or the young star based on whichever will help elongate the match. More

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      Canadian Tennis Players Excel at the U.S. Open

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      Canada’s high-performance tennis program is achieving its goal of producing elite players, several of whom have advanced at the U.S. Open.The Canadian flag is everywhere at the U.S. Open, where Canadian players are winning on courts across the grounds and beyond.On Saturday, Bianca Andreescu won in Louis Armstrong Stadium while Denis Shapovalov waited to play there in the night session. On Friday, Felix Auger-Aliassime beat Roberto Bautista Agut in Armstrong, Vasek Pospisil won at doubles on Court 10, and three Canadian girls won junior qualifying matches at the Cary Leeds Center in the Bronx.The biggest win took place in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday, when Leylah Fernandez, a French Open junior champion two years ago, beat No. 3 seed Naomi Osaka to muscle her way toward the front of Canada’s booming tennis program, an assembly line of players that includes four men in the top 60 and six girls in the top 100 of the junior rankings.Not bad for a country with about a tenth of the population of the United States. But Canadian players are pouring over the border and making New York their temporary home.“I’m just glad that there’s so many Canadians going deep in this tournament,” Fernandez said shortly after she had showed the steely nerve it took to oust the defending champion in the world’s biggest tennis stadium. Fernandez, who turns 19 on Monday, is the latest young Canadian to captivate the tennis world, following in the path of Andreescu, who won the 2019 U.S. Open; Auger-Aliassime; Shapovalov; and, before them, Milos Raonic and Eugenie Bouchard.A country of about 37 million, Canada has made a concerted effort over the past several years to develop elite players, and it is working. Most of them pass through Tennis Canada’s high-performance development program, and many were either immigrants themselves or the Canadian-born children of immigrants.Fernandez belongs to that list, too, although her route is unique. Her father and coach, Jorge Fernandez, was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and moved to Montreal with his family when he was a small boy. Fernandez’s mother, Irene Exevea, is of Filipino descent from Toronto.Jorge Fernandez describes himself as a former journeyman professional soccer player in the lower levels of the game, mostly in Latin America. He never knew anything about tennis until his daughter showed interest as a schoolgirl.“She played some soccer in Montreal,” the elder Fernandez said in a telephone interview Saturday, “but I didn’t want her to just follow me. I wanted her to find her own passion.”That turned out to be tennis, but Leylah struggled to gain the favor of the local tennis associations. She was part of a Quebec-based development program for a while, but it dropped her, Jorge said, in part because she was tiny. She still wanted to play.“I told her, ‘It’s OK, we’ll do it ourselves,’” her father said.They plunged ahead on their own, and soon enough, Leylah Fernandez was tearing through the ranks of her age group and several years above it, winning so many tournaments that Tennis Canada officials finally invited her to train with them.But as often happens when parents hand their children over to tennis federations, there were differences of opinion, especially over how much Leylah should play. Ultimately, Jorge Fernandez took his daughter out of the program, although amicably, he says.“I told them we would meet up again,” he explained, “and look, we have.”He continued: “It’s OK to have disagreements. We all wanted the same thing, which is for Leylah to be successful. We just had a different idea of how to do it, for a while. But they have been doing great work. I tip my hat to them with all the success they have had with so many Canadians going through the program.”Bianca Andreescu playing on Saturday.Justin Lane/EPA, via ShutterstockLeylah’s mother thought their daughter would be one of those successes, too. According to Jorge Fernandez, Exevea thought he was crazy to remove his daughter from a program that provided free coaching and more. But he was committed to doing it himself, so he and Leylah and her younger sister, Bianca Jolie, who is 17, continued to train on their own in Montreal. (The oldest, Jodeci, is a dentist in Ohio and did not play tennis competitively).That left the chief bread-winning duties to Exevea, who, unlike Jorge Fernandez, has a university degree. She moved to California so she could earn U.S. dollars and stayed there for three years while Jorge tapped into his knowledge as a former professional athlete to coach his daughters.“Those were difficult years, because they only saw their mother maybe two times a year,” Jorge said. “We finally decided to move to Florida. It’s the Mecca of tennis, and we could have the whole family together again.”To learn the art of tennis and coaching it, Jorge Fernandez immersed himself in the sport, reading texts and watching videos on the internet. His goal was to cultivate a balance between work and fun to ensure that Leylah never got burned out. He taught his daughter, who is 5 feet 6 inches, to study Justine Henin, who is listed at 5-6¾, because it seemed like an appropriate blueprint for success.Despite her size, Leylah Fernandez is a potent ball striker. Her father claims that, pound for pound, Leylah is “the best power hitter on the tour,” and she derives confidence from her strength. Even before she took the court against Osaka, she said she knew she could beat the four-time major champion.“From a very young age, I knew I was able to beat anyone,” she said Friday night, before noting that it was past her bedtime.When she won the French Open junior title in 2019, Leylah Fernandez asked her father if they could celebrate at McDonald’s. Always diligent about nutrition, and in a city known for its culinary expertise, Fernandez chose the fast food restaurant as a way to splurge. Her father agreed.“It was just the two of us,” Jorge said. “It was sweet, but at the same time, the whole family should have been there. It’s one of the difficult things of the tennis life, all the travel.”Jorge Fernandez could not attend his daughter’s victory over Osaka. He was in Florida attending to business. But before she took the court, Leylah called him for the strategic game plan, and he was true to his ethos.“He told me to go on the court, have fun,” she said, and she followed the advice perfectly, flashing a brilliant smile during a relaxed but exuberant speech after the match.For a time, her family had debated moving to Ecuador so that the girls could play for that country. Instead, they retained their loyalty to Canada, and Leylah Fernandez plays on the Canadian team for the Billie Jean King Cup. On Sunday, she will play No. 16 seed Angelique Kerber, a three-time Grand Slam tournament champion, for a spot in the quarterfinals.Already, she and her compatriots have helped raise the profile of Canadian tennis a notch higher.“Our goal here is just to have fun on court,” she said, “to do our best. Hopefully we can inspire kids in Canada to keep going.” More