Leylah Fernandez Wins DC Open
Leylah Fernandez achieved the most important title of her career at the DC Open, securing the victory with her most resounding triumph of the tournament. The Canadian tennis player defeated Anna Kalinskaya in the final with a score of 6-1, 6-2.
Fernandez, a 22-year-old left-hander currently ranked number 36, added her fourth individual title, all obtained in hard court tournaments, and the first in a WTA 500 event. The young player was close to winning a Grand Slam championship at the 2021 US Open, reaching the final in New York before falling to Emma Raducanu.
In Washington, Kalinskaya, ranked 48th, had maintained an impeccable streak without conceding sets throughout the week, until the final.
Fernandez demonstrated her superiority, saving the two break points she faced and taking advantage of four of Kalinskaya’s service games in a match that lasted 1 hour and 10 minutes. A key factor was Fernandez’s dominance, who won 10 of 12 points when Kalinskaya made the second serve.
This triumph represents the first title for Fernandez since October 2023, when he won the Hong Kong Open.
Fernandez arrived in Washington with a losing record for the season and without having won more than two matches in the same tournament since last November.
With a combination of excellent baseline play and a solid performance at the net, Fernandez eliminated the top seed, Jessica Pegula, and the third seed, Elena Rybakina, on her way to the final.
The victory against Rybakina in Saturday’s semifinals was decided in three tiebreaks and required more than three hours of play.
In the final, there wasn’t much excitement against Kalinskaya, a 26-year-old Russian player who suffered her third defeat in circuit-level finals. Previously, she lost against Jasmine Paolini in Dubai and against Pegula in Berlin last year.
The men’s final, scheduled for later on Sunday, would pit seventh seed Alex de Minaur against number 12, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who defeated number 1, Taylor Fritz, in the quarterfinals and Ben Shelton in the semifinals.
