Leylah Annie Fernandez of Montreal, during a news conference at the Odlum Brown VanOpen tennis tournament, in West Vancouver, on Aug. 12, 2019.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Marked by cold, damp Paris fall weather, tennis players existing in a bubble, and some upsets in the draw, this unusual French Open seems ripe for surprises. Canadian teenager Leylah Annie Fernandez is trying to be one of them.
The 18-year-old Montrealer is the lone Canadian singles player left at Roland Garros, the final Grand Slam of the pandemic-shortened tennis season. Fernandez has played her way to a third-round weekend showdown on the same red clay where she hoisted a junior trophy last June, this time facing one of the world’s top players.
After her upset wins over world No. 36 Magda Linette and No. 47 Polona Hercog in Paris this week, 100th-ranked Fernandez faces world No. 11 and two-time Grand Slam champion Petra Kvitova on Saturday. The Canadian teen is the youngest female left in the draw.
Fernandez has flown under the radar, while headlines lately have focused on other names in Canadian tennis. Genie Bouchard – enjoying a recent resurgence – was beaten in third-round match by Polish teenager Iga Swiatek 6-3, 6-2 on Friday. Denis Shapovalov – who recently soared to a career-high No. 9 ATP ranking with a quarter-final showing at the U.S. Open – lost in a gruelling five-hour second-round match on Thursday, then criticized organizers for a poorly controlled bubble and inconsiderate scheduling. Félix Auger-Aliassime, who was seeded 19th at Roland Garros after a hot run to the fourth round in New York, lost his first match in Paris.
As many young Canadian players before Fernandez have demonstrated, upsets can happen on the big stage. The women’s singles competition at Roland Garros has been intriguing, including the withdrawal of Serena Williams to the upsets of top seeds such as Karolina Pliskova, Victoria Azarenka and Johanna Konta.
Fernandez can attest that this trip to Paris – limited by the player bubble – is far different from the one she enjoyed in 2019 during the French Open’s usual warm spring timeslot, when she won her first junior Grand Slam and saw more of the picturesque city. This time she views the sites only from inside a vehicle.
“The conditions aren’t easy. There’s a lot of wind, there’s rain. Sometimes there’s delays,” Fernandez said in a virtual news conference. “But I’m happy to be in Paris. On the way back from Roland Garros all the way to the hotel, I’m lucky enough to be able to see the Eiffel Tower. At least I’m able to do sightseeing a little bit. But I’m here to do a job, to get through matches, hopefully getting to the second week of the tournament.”
Two Canadian doubles players remain. Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski is into the third round with Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko and will be looking to win her 10th career doubles title. Vasek Pospisil and American partner Jack Sock – playing together for the first time in four years – are alive in the second round. The duo, known as PopSock, takes aim at their second Grand Slam doubles title.
Bouchard’s momentum came to a halt Friday with her loss to Swiatek, who dictated with the impressive variety in her game. But Bouchard’s quest to climb back among the world’s best women continues for Canada’s one-time world No. 5 and 2014 Wimbledon finalist.
It was the best result at Roland Garros for Bouchard since she was a semi-finalist there in 2014, losing to eventual champion Maria Sharapova during what became the Canadian’s unforgettable career-best season. This year, Bouchard made the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time since the 2017 Australian Open.
Asked in her post-match news conference on Friday if she believes she can get back to where she once was, the 26-year-old Bouchard did not hesitate. “Yeah, of course I can,” she said.
Bouchard had spiralled down the rankings in recent seasons, but has been on a noticeable rise of late. She ranked as low as world No. 332 in March, then trained in Las Vegas during the lengthy tournament hiatus caused by the pandemic. She emerged from the shutdown stronger, fitter and with a renewed appreciation for the sport, saying repeatedly in Paris how thankful she was of the opportunities to compete again.
In her four events since the restart, Bouchard had a 10-4 record. That included the quarter-finals of the Prague Open and a run to her first WTA singles final in four years, quietly in Istanbul, as most of the tennis world was paying attention to the U.S. Open, which she didn’t have a high enough ranking to enter. Istanbul led to a wild card at Roland Garros, and she arrived there as the world No. 168.
Bouchard’s run in Paris will give her another rankings boost, expected to be in the neighbourhood of No. 140. Yet, Bouchard said Friday she’s unsure what she will do next, because opportunities to compete now become scarce in this unprecedented season. Many of the usual October and November tournaments around the world are cancelled, so continuing to improve her ranking is a challenge.
“As they say: It is what it is. I can’t control the opportunities or the tournaments or COVID,” Bouchard said. “I feel like I’ve done well since coming back from the break to try to give myself my best chance for those opportunities. And we’ll see what comes going forward. But I’ll just be ready and we’ll see what happens.”
World No. 21 Milos Raonic didn’t play in Paris. The now 29-year-old had some decent runs in 2020, including at the Cincinnati Masters, where he lost to Novak Djokovic in the final.
Bianca Andreescu, the rock star of Canadian tennis in 2019 with her stunning wins at Indian Wells, Rogers Cup and the U.S. Open – passed on 2020 and plans to return to competition starting Down Under in 2021. Now ranked No. 7 in the world, she has been spending time in Monaco where she lives, training and recovering from injuries that plagued the end of her 2019 season.