Leylah Fernandez was ousted by Danka Kovinic at the Volvo Car Open on Wednesday and UbiTennis had the chance to speak with her about the match, the season so far and the road ahead.
The 18-year-old is a rising star of the women’s game after showing success on the junior Tour. In 2019 she won the French Open girls title to become the first Canadian woman to win a junior Grand Slam title since Eugenie Bouchard. Since then Fernandez has made a steady rise on the professional Tour where she is currently at a ranking high of 72nd in the world. Earlier this season she won her maiden WTA title at the Monterrey Open.
“I’ll give credit to my opponent she played a good match but honestly today wasn’t my best day especially serving and I think that gave her confidence in the match but this is a great opportunity for me to learn and to get better for my next tournament,” Fernandez commented on her latest match in Charleston.
Due to her young age, there is always room for improvement of her game in the future. One particular area which appeared to trouble the Canadian in her clash with Kovinic was the ball toss. She produced six double faults and won less than 50% of her service points.
“We (my team) are discussing training-wise how to improve it and we have to take it step by step and need to find a way to get around and get it back on the positive side,” she explained.
Not too disheartened by her latest loss, Fernandez has already switch her focus to the next tournament. She will be representing Canada at the newly named Billie Jean King Cup. Her country faces Serbia and she is thrilled about the opportunity.
“I am very excited, I’m happy that our captain has nominated me to represent Canada once again and I’ll try to do my utmost best to have us qualified for the next round and we will go out there and have fun and do our best as a team and hopefully our result will be on our side,” she said.
It will be only the third time the teenager has played in the team competition. Her sole win at the event took place last year when she upset Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic.
Despite winning her first WTA title in Monterrey a couple weeks back the Montreal native admits that she is not happy with her season so far and would like to make it better.
“I’m not satisfied until now, yes I’m happy I won Monterrey but that’s in the past and now I want to focus on the future and my upcoming tournaments and hopefully it will be getting better from here on out,” she stated.
Fernandez plans to play the clay court season in Europe as she outlines her schedule.
“That is the plan to go to Europe for the Madrid and Rome tournaments and then French Open, we will see how the body feels, we will take it one tournament at a time and hopefully I’ll be there,” she concluded.
