Canadian No.1 Leylah Fernandez has accused her home tournament of failing to fulfil a promise made to her after she crashed out in the first round of the National Bank Open.
Fernandez suffered a comprehensive 6-4, 6-1, loss to Australia’s Maya Joint in less than 80 minutes. The defeat occurred less than 48 hours after she won the biggest title of her career at the Citi Open in Washington and her first title of any kind since 2023.
Due to the short turnaround between events, the world No.24 said organisers had promised her an evening slot on Tuesday to maximise her preparation time. However, her match was scheduled to take place in the early afternoon with a start time of not before 12:30pm.
“Regarding the short turnaround, I received a lot of promises from scheduling about giving me maybe the night match, and I did not receive that,” Fernandez said during her press conference.
“So that kind of hurt me because I was looking forward to playing at night, but you know, I guess it’s a little bit of political issues at that point.”
The reason why the 22-year-old missed out on a night slot was because she had yet to play her first round match, which all need to be played before the next round takes place unless there are unforeseen circumstances such as bad weather. Instead, top seed Coco Gauff and 23rd seed Sofia Kenin played their second round matches at night.
Speaking to The Canadian Press, Tournament director Valérie Tétreault said she told Fernandez she would ‘fight so that she could have the time she wanted.’ However, it is the WTA that has the final say on scheduling matters.
“I didn’t win my fight,” said Tétreault. “I received the request for her to play in the evening. It’s my role to have conversations with the WTA, so I pushed as much as possible for her to have what she wanted.”
Meanwhile, Tennis Canada has also issued a statement backing up what Tétreault said. Fernandez’s first round match was one of the last to be played.
“WTA protocols mean first-round matches need to be completed before second-round matches are played, ensuring fairness to all players,” Tennis Canada outlined. “Given Leylah won the title in Washington on Sunday, she was not able to arrive in Montreal until the early hours of Monday morning. As a result, the WTA made the decision to play her opening match in the latest possible first-round slot.”
Following Fernandez’s exit, there are two Canadian women still left in the draw. Rising star Victoria Mboko is through to the third round of a WTA 1000 event for the first time in her career at the age of 18 after beating Kenin 6-2, 6-3. Meanwhile, Eugenie Bouchard will play her second round match against Belinda Bencic on Wednesday in what could be the last match of her career.
