After competing in the Tokyo Olympics for Canada, 19-year-old tennis player Leylah Fernandez is off to the US Open women’s final this Saturday. Fernandez’s competitive nature along with the energy of the New York crowd (as she states in the video above) have been the driving forces in her journey to the women’s final of the US Open.
Fernandez won the 2019 junior French Open, becoming the first Canadian teenage girl to win a junior Grand Slam since Eugenie Bouchard in 2012, Since then, she’s been one to watch on the tennis court.
In the past year alone she’s made the final of the Mexican Open, reached the third round of the French Open, won the Monterrey Open, and competed in the Tokyo Olympics. During the Monterrey Open, Fernandez never dropped a set and beat well-known players Belinda Bencic and Sloane Stephens along the way.
At the US Open, Fernandez has already bested Naomi Osaka, Angelique Kerber, and Elina Svitolina to become the youngest player in the tournament’s history to make it to the semifinals since Maria Sharapova in 2005, and the youngest player to defeat two out of the top five ranked players in the Women’s Tennis Association (Osaka and Svitolina) since Serena Williams achieved the feat in 1999.
As she heads into the women’s final Fernandez, along with Emma Raducanu, will be competing in the first teen-only US Open women’s final since 1999 when Serena Williams won against Martina Hingis. Before you watch Fernandez compete in the US Open women’s final, keep reading to find out more about the left-handed tennis player both on and off the tennis court.
