{"id":28827,"date":"2025-07-28T07:14:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T07:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/28827\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T07:14:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T07:14:14","slug":"canadas-leylah-fernandez-wins-dc-open-with-6-1-6-2-victory-over-anna-kalinskaya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/28827\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Leylah Fernandez wins DC Open with 6-1, 6-2 victory over Anna Kalinskaya"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Leylah Fernandez, of Canada, returns the ball against Jessica Pegula at the Citi Open tennis tournament on Thursday. Fernandez defeated Anna Kalinskaya 6-1, 6-2 in the final on Sunday.Nick Wass\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Leylah Fernandez collected the biggest title of her career at the DC Open with her most lopsided victory of the tournament, defeating Anna Kalinskaya 6-1, 6-2 in the final on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The left-handed Fernandez, a 22-year-old from Canada who is ranked 36th, earned her fourth singles trophy \u2014 all have come at hard-court tournaments \u2014 and first at a WTA 500 event. She came quite close to a Grand Slam championship as a teenager at the 2021 U.S. Open, making it all the way to the final in New York before losing to Emma Raducanu.<\/p>\n

There almost was a rematch in Washington, but Kalinskaya eliminated Raducanu in the semifinals Saturday.<\/p>\n

Until Sunday, the 48th-ranked Kalinskaya had not dropped a set all week.<\/p>\n

However, she wasn\u2019t able to keep up with Fernandez, who saved the only break point she faced while taking four of Kalinskaya\u2019s service games in a match that lasted 1 hour, 10 minutes. One key: Fernandez claimed 10 of the 12 points in the match when Kalinskaya hit a second serve. Another: Kalinskaya finished with 24 unforced errors and just nine winners.<\/p>\n

This was the first title for Fernandez since October 2023 at the Hong Kong Open.<\/p>\n

She dedicated this victory to her mother, her older sister and her fitness trainer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you so much for never giving up on me \u2014 and don\u2019t give up on yourselves,\u201d Fernandez said. \u201cThis trophy is for you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

She arrived in Washington with a losing record this season and hadn\u2019t won more than two matches at the same tournament since last November.<\/p>\n

With a mix of baseline excellence and strong net play, Fernandez eliminated top-seeded Jessica Pegula \u2013 the U.S. Open runner-up last year \u2013 and No. 3 seed Elena Rybakina \u2013 the Wimbledon champion in 2022 \u2013 on the way to the final.<\/p>\n

The win against Rybakina in Saturday\u2019s semifinals took three tiebreakers and more than three hours to decide.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazing fight this week,\u201d Kalinskaya told Fernandez after the title match. \u201cYou truly deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no such drama against Kalinskaya, a 26-year-old Russian who fell to 0-3 in tour-level finals. She lost to Jasmine Paolini in Dubai and to Pegula in Berlin last year.<\/p>\n

The men\u2019s final scheduled for later Sunday was No. 7 seed Alex de Minaur against No. 12 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who defeated No. 1 Taylor Fritz in the quarterfinals and No. 4 Ben Shelton in the semifinals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Leylah Fernandez, of Canada, returns the ball against Jessica Pegula at the Citi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-28827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}