‘I want to be back here next year, only with the right trophy’
After winning the hearts of Canadians and the New York crowd, Fernandez’s U.S. Open dream ends with loss in final, DiManno,
NEW YORK—With trembling lips and sad eyes, Leylah Fernandez watched the new U.S. Open women’s champion scrambling up through the stands to her player’s box for hugs and kisses and delighted celebration.
The last shot the Canadian had seen in a fortnight of tennis was a matchpoint 108-m.p.h. ace out wide.
No chance to react. No chance to move. Rendered a woebegone spectator as Emma Raducanu fell to her knees — as they all do — then rolled onto her back.
Teen on teen, unseeded on unseeded, in a breathless final, probably neither truly grasping the wonder of what they’d accomplished to come this far at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Too unfledged to appreciate the phenomenon, too freewheeling within that buoyant bounce of youth to disbelieve in themselves.
But it was the 18-year-old Briton who prevailed over the 19-year-old Canadian in straight sets: 6-4, 6-3 in an hour and 53 minutes. Raducanu lifted the trophy, Fernandez got the silver platter — and $1.25 million (U.S.). Not too shabby.
The whooping Brits will be unsufferable, basking in the glory of their first female Grand Slam champion in 44 years. You know, though, Raducanu, who was born in Toronto two months after Fernandez was born in Montreal, has a Canadian passport and dual citizenship. Canada could, if we wanted to be really mingy about it, claim Raducanu as our own, at the very least get all co-proprietary about it.
Nah. We’ll stick with Fernandez and revel in a marvellous tournament that ended one stride short of the triumphant finish line.
And if Fernandez had charmed and totally won over the crowd at Flushing Meadows — which she did — she moved them further to poignant adoration as she spoke on the court post-match, with her mane of hair unbunned, spread around her shoulders, a smile back on her face. Remembering, in an addendum, that this was a very difficult day for America, the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
“I know this day is especially hard for New York and everyone around the United States. I just want to say that I hope I can be as strong and as resilient as New York has been the past 20 years. Thank you for always having my back, thank you for cheering for me. I love you New York and hope to see you next year.”
How does a teenager — Fernandez was still 18 when this tournament began — summon that kind of evocative graciousness? She must have been well-raised by Jorge and Irene Fernandez, a mom with Filipino immigrant parents and an Ecuadorean dad who turned himself into a tennis discipline by watching videos because his little girl had fallen in thrall to the sport and showed signs of prodigy talent.
But we’ve come to know the essence of Fernandez on and off the court over these past weeks, the poise of her game and the loveliness of her character. Even those who don’t much care for tennis and had never heard of her before. She has become beloved, as was Bianca Andreescu, another teenager, Grand Slam victorious here two years ago.
An audience palpably on her side couldn’t make enough of a difference