WASHINGTON \u2014 The biggest tennis title of Leylah Fernandez\u2019s career arrived at the D.C. Open on Sunday with the help of a terrific backhand, some superb returning \u2014 and energy courtesy of Shake Shack\u2019s burgers and fries.<\/p>\n
The left-handed Fernandez, a 22-year-old from Laval, Que., who is ranked 36th, wrapped up a big week of tight matches with a lopsided victory, defeating Anna Kalinskaya of Russia 6-1, 6-2 in the final.<\/p>\n
Fernandez 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 Saturday\u2019s semifinals.<\/p>\n
The men\u2019s trophy was won by No. 7 seed Alex de Minaur, who earned his 10th ATP title \u2014 eighth on hard courts \u2014 by saving three championship points in a 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 (3) victory over No. 12 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. De Minaur, a 26-year-old Australian, was the runner-up in Washington in 2018.<\/p>\n
Davidovich Fokina dropped to 0-4 for his career in finals despite leading 5-2 in the third set Sunday and repeatedly standing just a single point from victory. This was his second time frittering away multiple match points in a tournament final this year. He entered the week at No. 26 and will make his debut in the top 20 on Monday; he remains the highest-ranked man without a title.<\/p>\n
Fernandez took quite a journey through the women\u2019s bracket.<\/p>\n
She needed 2 hours, 19 minutes to oust No. 1 seed Jessica Pegula \u2014 last year\u2019s U.S. Open runner-up \u2014 in three sets in the second round, then 2 hours, 20 minutes to beat Taylor Townsend in the quarterfinals, and 3 hours, 12 minutes for a three-tiebreaker victory over No. 3 seed Elena Rybakina \u2014 the 2022 Wimbledon champion \u2014 in the semifinals.<\/p>\n
After each of the last two, Fernandez and her father \u2014 who is also her coach \u2014 opted for Shake Shack.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got burgers, hotdog, cheese fries \u2014 everything that an athlete should not eat before a match, but it did the trick,\u201d Fernandez said about what she ate after the Townsend match. \u201cIt gave me the right nutrients to recover from the cramps and get ready for the next round.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the Rybakina marathon, Fernandez said she and her father \u201cwere messaging, and I was, like, \u2018OK, what do you want to eat tonight?\u2019 We both answered at the same time: burgers. \u2026 That was kind of my diet for the whole week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sure worked: This was the first title for Fernandez since October 2023 at the Hong Kong Open.<\/p>\n
Plus, 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
\u201cI have gone through so many different challenges this week. It just has made me stronger, in a way, that if I can get through this week \u2014 through the cramps, through the long matches, through the heat, the humidity \u2014 I can get through anything,\u201d Fernandez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I was just very happy that I got to not only push myself physically through the limits, but also mentally. So that kind of will help me hopefully for future tournaments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Against the 48th-ranked Kalinskaya, who hadn\u2019t dropped a set until Sunday, Fernandez saved the only break point she faced while breaking four times.<\/p>\n
One key: Fernandez claimed 10 of the 12 points when Kalinskaya hit a second serve. Another: Kalinskaya \u2014 a 26-year-oldwho is 0-3 in tour finals \u2014 finished with 24 unforced errors and just nine winners.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmazing fight this week,\u201d Kalinskaya told Fernandez. \u201cYou truly deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Howard Fendrich, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The biggest tennis title of Leylah Fernandez\u2019s career arrived at the D.C. Open on Sunday with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-29528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29528","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=29528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}