Leylah Fernandez won the first eight points and the first seven games of the match en route to capturing her first Kinoshita Group Japan Open title Sunday in Osaka.<\/p>\n
The No. 4 seed defeated 18-year-old qualifier Tereza Valentova, who was making her WTA final debut, 6-0, 5-7, 6-3 in 2 hours and 11 minutes. The victory marked Fernandez\u2019s fifth career title and second of 2025.<\/p>\n
Her run in Osaka, which included five consecutive wins, was just the second time since her Washington, D.C., triumph in July that she won back-to-back matches.<\/p>\n
With the win, Fernandez climbs five spots to No. 22 in the PIF WTA Live Rankings and reclaims the Canadian No. 1 ranking from Victoria Mboko.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, congratulations Tereza,\u201d Fernandez said during the trophy presentation. \u201cYou played amazing, and it\u2019s been a wonderful week for you, your coach and your family. I\u2019m sure I\u2019m going to see you in many more finals like this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
She then turned her attention to those closest to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinally, I want to thank my team and my dad, who\u2019s also my coach, and my hitting partner,\u201d she said. \u201cThank you so much for suffering with me this past week, past month and past year. I also want to thank my family and loved ones back home. Without you, I wouldn\u2019t be here. Without everyone\u2019s sacrifices and support, I wouldn\u2019t be on this stage, so thank you so much for all the love and motivation you\u2019ve given me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fernandez opened the match with confidence befitting the more experienced player, needing less than 30 minutes to race through the first set and bagel the young Czech.<\/p>\n
Valentova appeared emotional during the changeover after falling behind 5-0, perhaps feeling the pressure of the biggest moment of her career thus far. To her credit, she regrouped and played more freely in the second set, breaking Fernandez three times and finally consolidating in the final game to force a decider.<\/p>\n
In the third set, Fernandez\u2019s past experience proved pivotal to the present. Leading 2-1, she pounced on Valentova\u2019s second serve on break point, unleashing a crosscourt backhand followed by a down-the-line backhand winner to break for 3-1.<\/p>\n
Valentova responded with one more break to close the gap to 4-3 and earned several additional break points across the third set, but Fernandez held firm the rest of the way and ultimately sealed the win.<\/p>\n
She celebrated with a bow to the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also want to thank the fans,\u201d Fernandez said. \u201cFor coming this week, for supporting us — not only myself but every player in this tournament. Without you, we wouldn\u2019t be here, so thank you so much for supporting us, motivating us and bringing the good energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
All five of Fernandez\u2019s career titles have come on hard courts.<\/p>\n
For Valentova, the loss may be bittersweet. After a rough opening set, she clawed her way back into the match and made a strong impression in her first WTA final.<\/p>\n
Coming through qualifying, she earned six wins on the week, including three over top 50 opponents. That included a straight-sets victory over No. 3 seed and world No. 21 Elise Mertens in the second round. She also had a dominant first-round win over Alexandra Eala, dropping just three games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She also came from a set down in her second-round qualifying win over Greet Minnen and in her quarterfinal and semifinal victories over Olga Danilovic and Jaqueline Cristian, nearly repeating the feat in the final against Fernandez.<\/p>\n
When the newest rankings drop Monday, Valentova will reach a career-best No. 58, up 20 spots from where she began the week.<\/p>\n
Townsend, Mladenovic capture doubles title<\/p>\n
In Saturday\u2019s doubles final, No. 2 seeds Taylor Townsend and Kristina Mladenovic defeated Storm Hunter and Desirae Krawczyk 6-4, 2-6, [10-5] to claim their first title together in Osaka.<\/p>\n
For Townsend, a two-time Grand Slam champion and current world No. 2, it marks her 11th career WTA doubles title and fourth of the season. With the win, she has now collected one WTA 250, WTA 500, WTA 1000 and Grand Slam title this season, while snapping a two-match losing streak in finals.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first title of the year for Mladenovic, bringing her career total to 29. The former doubles world No.1 owns nine Grand Slam titles across doubles and mixed doubles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leylah Fernandez won the first eight points and the first seven games of the match en route to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,1602,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-210805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}