Toronto Star ePaper

Growing into stardom

Fernandez is still discovering who she might be, and we are too

JOE CALLAGHAN

Google is banking on Leylah Fernandez. So, for that matter, is Lululemon. On Monday it will already be Tuesday in Melbourne but the teenager, who fast-forwarded her future when she slayed giant after giant at the 2021 U.S. Open, will re-emerge on a Grand Slam court to show why she too is banking on Leylah Fernandez.

So much will look the same, the megawatt Fernandez smile that gives way to a steely, staredown focus, for instance. But so much will be different, starting with the number beside her name as she is seeded in a Grand Slam for the first time, No. 23 at the Australian Open. The shirt on her back will be new too.

Fernandez was unveiled as Lululemon’s first global tennis ambassador last week. A partnership with Google and the company’s Pixel phone followed the next day. Gatorade joined the party Sunday. Approachable, affable, so well-spoken in three languages and as proud of her Filipino and Ecuadorian roots as her Canadian nationality, Fernandez is five-foot-six of fresh air off the court and grit, guts and guile on it. Simply put, she is a branding dream.

As she kicks off a season in which her spoken aim is to break into the world top 10, the calibre of companies partnering with the 19-yearold from Laval, Que., tells as much about the new, rarefied air she breathes Down Under as that number beside her name.

Her magical run to the historic all-teen women’s final at Flushing Meadows last September didn’t end with the victory she craved but Fernandez still won plenty. She won a world of admirers, won the kind of runners-up cheque that most would call life-changing, won a place at the top table of the sport.

As the tech and fashion giants now line up to bank on her making that stay at the table a long, lingering one, Fernandez, with her familyfirst support system never too far, sounds determined to avoid the most common tripwires that have felled those who came before her. The pressure to prove her breakout success was just that — and not a brief flicker or fluke — can often prove suffocating, but Fernandez is breathing easy.

“I’m finding out who Leylah Fernandez is,” she told People magazine in one of a rash of interviews to promote her new sponsors. “I am finding my voice. My love for the game and this sport is continuing to grow and I am growing along with it. I am finding out what is most important to me and the type of partnerships I want to work on.”

Professional sports are rarely forgiving of their young stars but tennis arguably trumps them all. No game consistently devours its young quite like it. The list of next big things who next fell flat in the lonely, punishing and pressurized environment of the pro tour runs long … John Isner-Nicolas Mahut long. Those tripwires can be physical, more often psychological, sometimes social or just logistical.

When Eugenie Bouchard blazed her trail to the Wimbledon final in 2014 at the age of 20, the future stretched out before her. But amid nagging injuries, dips in form and then resurgences, Grand Slams have been testing and at times torturous theatres for Bouchard, who has advanced past the fourth round of a Slam just once in 24 attempts since.

The bravery of Naomi Osaka and others speaking searingly openly

about those psychological pressures, and beginning to normalize the process of taking space and time to deal with them, undoubtedly helps those next in line. But it doesn’t make such pressures disappear, which Fernandez and her father and coach Jorge are all too aware of.

“Growing up I was taught that pressure and stress will be my best friend,” Fernandez said in Australia last week. “We’re going to see how I’m able to transition from what I did last year to this year. But I define success as me enjoying the sport, enjoying my time on the tennis court.”

While the men’s championship reels from the fallout of Novak Djokovic’s arrogance meeting Australia’s political ineptitude, previews of the women’s side of the year’s first Grand Slam have centred around Fernandez and Toronto-born Briton Emma Raducanu, who vanquished her in New York. That’s understandable. But there is a train of thought in some corners of the tennis world that losing the U.S. Open final may prove to not have actually been the worst thing in Fernandez’s world. The contrast in how even the five months since have played out for runner-up and winner is striking and backs up the argument.

Raducanu followed her historic triumph by sacking the coach who had helped her get there. While both teenagers went next to Indian Wells, Fernandez took down another higher seed en route to the last 16 while Raducanu was skittled out in straight sets by a player ranked 100th in the world.

Fernandez called it a season afterward and put the racket down for the first time in a long time. She enjoyed a family vacation and her sister’s wedding before slowly building things back up again on the beaches of Miami with fitness coach Douglas Cordero, who has helped guide Austrian Dominic Thiem to multiple Grand Slam finals and the 2020 U.S. Open title.

Raducanu, meantime, didn’t source a new coach until November, caught COVID-19 in December and arrived in Australia without a warm-up tournament to find she would face a nightmare draw, starting with former U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens in the first round.

As the two 19-year-olds head into their first Slam since New York, Fernandez also arguably has more to fall back on if and when things get tough. While Raducanu won the title without beating any top-10 player, the Canadian knocked off three of the top five under the spotlights of Arthur Ashe.

When the Star spent time at Tennis Canada headquarters in the wake of the U.S. Open, exploring what the breakthrough of Fernandez and men’s semifinalist Félix Auger-Aliassime meant for the game here, that giant-slaying came up. Sylvain Bruneau, Tennis Canada’s head of women’s pro tennis, described Fernandez’s win against Osaka particularly as “a career awakening … where you realize why not? Why not now?”

“Leylah has her eyes set on something bigger, she always did,” Bruneau said. “You have these people around you telling you but there’s nothing like doing it. It’s like that first dive you take in. Do I think she’s now going to win every match? No, of course not. But I think she proved herself by doing it, not just thinking it.”

Fernandez’s new future will begin against Australia’s Maddison Inglis in the first round. She finds herself in what could be a daunting fourth quarter of the draw with secondseeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, 10th-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia and German Angelique Kerber, the 16th seed.

But when she says she is determined to have fun with it all, it’s hard to argue with Fernandez. After all, she saw off Sabalenka and Kerber at Flushing Meadows and dismissed Pavlyuchenkova at Indian Wells. All in all, plenty to bank on.

SPORTS

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2022-01-17T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-17T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://torontostar.pressreader.com/article/282132114811048

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