Who is Leylah Fernandez? Told at school she would not make it at tennis and now one win from US Open glory

For obvious reasons virtually all the focus has been on Emma Raducanu’s stunning march to the final, but the 18 year-old isn’t the only teenage star to shock in New York. Leylah Fernandez turned 19 during her run to Saturday’s showdown and, as with Raducanu, has stunned rivals, pundits and fans in the process.

Here’s the lowdown on the woman who stands between the Briton and US Open history and how Raducanu can beat her.

Who is she?

Born in Montreal to an Ecuadorian father, Jorge, and a Filipino-Canadian mother, Irene, the family moved to Florida when she was 12 following her early success in the junior ranks of the game.

She has good sporting genes as her Dad played professional football and has since become a self-taught tennis coach and mentor to his daughter. Some coaches have raised eyebrows over some of his methods - apparently he had a reward and punishment coaching technique - but his aim has been to make her mentally tough.

“In the land of the blind the one-eyed-man is king. I had one eye, and I said, 'OK, since my kids and wife don’t know better, I’m not going to get criticised much'. I decided we’re going to focus a lot on fitness, mental toughness, and speed. A lot of precision tennis, and every now and again, a knockout punch,” he told Canadian broadcaster CBC.

Having won the junior French Open in 2019 Fernandez turned turned professional and has since quietly - until this US Open - gone about making a name for herself. Over the past 12 months she's reached the final of the Mexican Open, the third round of the French Open, won the Monterrey Open and competed for Canada in the Tokyo Olympics. That’s got her to a career high of 66 in the world rankings and she entered this tournament as the No 73 in the world.

On Friday, Fernandez's father Jorge gave a virtual press conference from his home in Canada (he hasn't been at the tournament), saying that he has been wearing the same jeans, socks and underwear for every one of his daughter's matches.

He said he is "extremely superstitious" and won't be travelling to New York for the final so as not to unsettle his daughter.

"It's about superstition. If I come and she loses I won't be able to forgive myself," he said.

Was she always destined to be a tennis player?

Considering the early focus on the sport and rapid rise, you’d think the answer was a big ‘yes’. But, as Fernandez revealed in her post-match interview after beating Aryna Sabelenka 7-6, 4-6, 6-4 in the semi-final, she was once advised to take up another passion.

A teacher told her she’d never make it, but, as a determined soul, Fernandez says she uses that daily motivation.

“A lot of people doubted me, my family and my dreams,” Fernandez said. “I remember one teacher, which was actually very funny - at the time it wasn't, but now I'm laughing. She told me to stop playing tennis, you will never make it, and just focus on school. I'm glad she told me that because every day I have that phrase in my head saying, ‘I'm going to keep going, push through, prove to her everything I've dreamed of I'm going to achieve’.”

What has her run to the final been like?

Whisper it, but if anything it’s been more impressive, and no less surprising, than Raducanu’s.

On her way to the semi-final Fernandez saw off world No 3 and four-time grand slam champion Naomi Osaka, three-time Grand Slam champion Angelique Kerber and world No 5 Elina Svitolina. In the process she become the youngest player to beat two out of the top-five players in the world rankings since none other than Serena Williams achieved the feat back in 1999. That was before she then beat the world No 2 Aryna Sabelenka in Thursday’s last-four clash.

One thing that may give her an advantage over Raducanu is the fact that her passage to the Saturday showdown has included four three-setters compared to the Briton’s none. On the one hand Raducanu will be the fresher, but come a nail-biting deciding set those close-run battles could stand Fernandez in good stead.

There’s no doubt that Raducanu hasn’t been fazed by the surroundings and stature of the US Open, but the same can definitely be said of Fernandez - this will be a final between two fearless players.

Of her run to the final Fernandez said: “I think I've been doing some incredible things. I don't know. It's like I think one word that really stuck to me is ‘magical’ because not only is my run really good but also the way I'm playing right now.

“I'm just having fun, I'm trying to produce something for the crowd to enjoy. I'm glad that whatever I'm doing on court, the fans are loving it and I'm loving it, too. We'll say it's magical.”

On Friday night as she headed out to the practice courts, a masked Leylah Fernandez told the Telegraph she was “feeling great.”

How does Fernandez play and how does Raducanu take her on?

Fernandez will present a very different challenge to anything Raducanu has seen in this tournament to date. Firstly, she is a lefty, Secondly, she is a creative genius with an ability to create magical shots out of nothing.

Above all, though, she is a contemporary. And that takes away one of Raducanu’s biggest psychological weapons.

Raducanu’s sensory assault works on many levels. Much of it is down to her suffocating game style. But there is also the sense – for everyone but Fernandez – that they are watching the future bear down on them. And they haven’t enjoyed it much.

Players like Belinda Bencic and Maria Sakkari came on court expecting to profit from Raducanu’s youth and inexperience. They thought she would suffer some sort of nerves, or at least make the odd error under pressure. When that didn’t happen, both women soon found their own composure evaporating as a result.

But it was a different story when Raducanu played Clara Tauson in the final of the $125,000 event in Chicago three weeks ago. Tauson is six weeks younger than Raducanu, a phenomenal teenage prospect who has been touted as the natural successor to her Danish compatriot Caroline Wozniacki. She thus knew all about the fearlessness of youth, since she has exactly the same quality herself.

It is perhaps no coincidence that Tauson won that final in three gruelling sets, becoming the only woman to beat Raducanu over the course of 18 completed matches over the last two months. As the stakes climbed in the decider, Tauson swung more and more freely, making Raducanu look passive by comparison as she clinched a 6-1, 2-6, 6-4 win.

The Tauson match provides a lesson for Raducanu to take into the final – and she has already proved how quickly she learns. She cannot afford to let Fernandez shape the rallies on Saturday.

For all the breathless adrenaline rush of Raducanu’s story, Fernandez has delivered the matches of the tournament, including those four three-setters back to back, eliminating Osaka and Sabalenka, the tournament’s defending champion and its biggest hitter, along the way.

At 5ft 6in tall, with a figure as slight as a ballet dancer, Fernandez was left out of Tennis Canada’s funding programme in the past because they thought she was too small. The source of her power remains is a mystery, especially when her forehand – which Keats might have called a thing of beauty and a joy for ever – has virtually no take-back. She uses her racket like a paintbrush, often painting the lines with strokes that carry a far higher risk tariff than Raducanu’s.

So it will be up to Raducanu to stifle Fernandez’s creative flow. She managed this effectively in 2018, when they met in the second round of the Wimbledon junior event, and Raducanu scored a 6-2, 6-4 victory, before going out to another member of this irresistible new generation – last year’s French Open champion Iga Swiatek – in the quarter-finals.

Raducanu’s camp will hope that time on court could be a decisive factor. Both women’s matches have been predictable, lengthwise, given that all six of Raducanu’s victories have lasted between 66 minutes and 84 minutes, whereas Fernandez’s ranged from 1hr 45min to 2hr 24min.

That adds up to an extra five hours on the court for Fernandez in the main event. But then Raducanu also had the prior commitment of the qualifiers, which rather balances things out. Such is the lack of data surrounding these two prodigies that tennis forecasters might be taking the night off.

Has she played Raducanu before?

While they have never met professionally, as mentioned above, they last met in 2018 in the junior competition at Wimbledon. But they go back ever further than that. They knew each other from their time in the even more junior ranks. Indeed, after her semi-final win, Raducanu recalled the first time they faced each other as 12 year-olds in Florida.

“I think it was maybe Orange Bowl, under-12s,” the Briton said. “It was definitely under-12s. We first encountered each other because I was born in Toronto and she was Canadian, so we kind of, like, made a little relationship back then. The fact that we are both here after having played each other from the early days, it’s very cool to see just how far we have come.”

From playing as 12 year olds they will now face off for the US Open title and the not insignificant winner’s cheque of £1.8 million - so far Fernandez’s career earnings amount to £269,436 and Raducanu’s £193,336. But whatever happens they have both more than made their mark over the past two weeks.