Injured Fernandez knocked out in quarters
PARIS Leylah Fernandez’s dream run at Roland Garros ended in the quarterfinals Tuesday — a combination of a tough matchup against fellow left-hander Martina Trevisan of Italy and a right foot injury that required treatment in the first set of a 6-2, 6-7 (3), 6-3 defeat.
Trevisan served for the match at 5-4 in the second set, only to be broken and have Fernandez take the set in a tiebreak.
The third set looked like one-way traffic, with Trevison winning the first four games. But Fernandez continued to fight. It took nearly an hour for the 28-year-old Italian, a surprise quarterfinalist in Paris in 2020, to earn her second match point.
This time, she finished the job, and is off to her first Roland Garros semifinal to face fellow first-time Grand Slam semifinalist Coco Gauff of the U.S.
The trademark energy, exuberance and demonstrativeness was absent in Fernandez’s game Tuesday, no doubt due to concerns about the foot. There had been no sign of a problem during her practice session Monday, at least not during the first hour. But it appears to have been a pre-existing issue.
After several hours during which Fernandez was said to be having treatment, and a couple of postponements, the Canadian did not meet with the media to shed light on the injury “on advice of the tournament medical team.”
She was spotted in the women’s locker room with crutches.
It is not known if the injury is serious enough to affect her preparation and competitive plans during the short grass-court season leading up to Wimbledon next month.
A few brief questions put to Fernandez by the WTA communications officials yielded little information, although she was not asked what the problem was.
“Today was definitely hard luck. I did feel it before the match, but I didn’t think much of it. You know, it just happened and we are just going to have to learn from this,” Fernandez said during a 58-second audio clip.
Fernandez came up limping on the last point of the 2-2 game in the first set. Upon arrival at her chair, the physical trainer and doctor came out to treat what appeared to be a problem on the top of her right foot, near the toes. She also took a couple of tablets from the tournament doctor.
Fernandez’s foot was wrapped and some 20 minutes later, when the pills finally kicked in, she did mount more resistance, pushing the match to a third set.
Fernandez has been remarkably healthy so far in her young career despite being undersized by modern standards. But she arrived at the Australian Open in January with an abductor pull suffered in Adelaide, a tune-up tournament two weeks before the main event. She fell in the first round of the Australian Open to obscure qualifier Maddison Inglis, in straight sets.
Fernandez’s next scheduled tournament is the WTA 500 in Berlin, Germany, which begins June 13.