Maybe one day, when Leila Fernandez and Emma Raducanu enter the draw for a major tournament, one of their names won’t immediately pop up in the tennis consciousness.
Maybe, but not yet.
One of them has been working her way up and down the ever-changing ladder of women’s professional tennis.
Another struggled for a year and a half to win, then called it a season and had three surgeries — one on each wrist and one on an ankle — on one grim day last spring. Soon after, another person realized she needed to hit the reset button on her career, too.
One of them is the daughter of a finance executive, the daughter of a Chinese father and a Romanian mother. She grew up in the UK and has many advantages, including the opportunity to choose the best universities if she pursues this path.
The other grew up in Canada and later on the hot hard courts of Florida, the daughter of a former Ecuadorian soccer player who made a living with a tennis racket.
Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez don’t have much in common except that they were born nine weeks apart in Canada. They were nothing more than professional acquaintances.
Inevitably, they will always be bigger than that and will forever be linked by those magical two weeks just over two years ago when, as teenagers, they co-starred in one of the funniest Grand Slam tennis tournaments of all time. After nearly three weeks of competition, Raducanu, a relative unknown outside Britain, has won 10 matches in a row, including qualifying, and won 20 sets in a row, defeating the world No. 73 but ranked No. 2 Fernandez. It was an unlikely day to reach the finals and fight for the championship.
Raducanu, 18, celebrates victory at the 2021 U.S. Open (Getty Images)
Since then, both of them have experienced many setbacks. Tough losses and early round exits, hard lessons about life in the spotlight, and a series of injuries that sometimes feel like they’ll never stop. Raducanu, in particular, looked excruciatingly painful every game and every loss, especially in the final months when she played through constant pain.
But they are in Melbourne this week, entering the second round of the draw, and at an age when most players are still trying to get into the first phase, they are busy with the next phase of their tennis lives.
For the 21-year-old Raducanu, that meant a necessary win over veteran American Shelby Rogers in the first round on Tuesday night. Rodgers, 31, has been searching for form after six months out injured, but during her long training sessions Raducanu displayed much of the style that has taken her to lofty heights – effortless, deceptively quick moves, low, low, The power of whipping and curling off the ground, even a soft backhand drop shot, and most importantly, the ability not to beat yourself up with careless mistakes.
The final score was 6-3, 6-2, which was not that close. A little more and Raducanu will be ranked well above No. 296 in the world before long.
“Various aspects My life is calming down and settling down,” Raducanu said. “When you come back eight months after three surgeries, you’re really grateful to be able to move around freely.”
Raducanu returns to health after three surgeries (James D. Morgan/Getty Images)
This all comes just days after Fernandez won one of her opening matches of the tournament, defeating Czech Sara Bjelek in straight sets. Of course, Beyelek was only a 17-year-old qualifier, but this was a different Fernandez, who not only kept points and chased the puck in the corners like she always did, but also rushed to the net to finish it off like she always did. She rarely did this before.
“I can’t always be a grinder or just a returner,” Fernandez said shortly after the game, sitting on a soft chair in a Melbourne Park corridor. “Everyone on the tour is a grinder. You see top players and they run for every ball.”
For Fernandez, it was a fresh start after the French Open, where she lost in three sets in the second round against world No. 127 Clara Towson of Denmark. Even though Fernandez and Taylor Townsend made it to the French Open doubles final, her father suggested they sit down formally to discuss her future. Her singles ranking is about to drop to No. 95, its lowest level since 2020.
He told her she could listen 100% to what he had to say and be in the top 20 at the end of the season, or less than 100%, maybe in the top 40.
“Of course, I didn’t listen to him 100 percent,” she said. “That comes with maturity, I admit that.”
Fernandez’s resurgence (Kelly Defina/Getty Images)
But she did listen to a lot of what he told her, and signed on to his plan to play a mini-preseason tournament from scratch a few weeks before Wimbledon, sometimes putting her racket to the side of the court and concentrating. About her fitness. She was once one of the fastest players in the game but somehow got slower, or the game got faster and women were moving forward more or hitting lobs, taking up time from her.
She needed to go faster and longer, and the only way to do that was to build up endurance.
“You see Novak Djokovic every year, he’s trying to improve something,” said Fernandez, who faces American Alicia Parks in the second round. “He changed his whole diet. He started doing yoga. It was very basic. The foundation of an athlete’s body. We wanted to see where my fitness could improve because if my fitness level is high and I Be confident and my game will follow.”
Her summer, which included another mini-preseason after Wimbledon, had its ups and downs, including a first-round loss at the U.S. Open. In September, she participated in the qualifying round, but in October, she won the Hong Kong Open and then entered the semi-finals of the Jiangxi Open.
It’s taken a while, but the 21-year-old Fernandez is finally starting to feel like support rather than pressure from all the attention and crowds directed at her since the 2021 U.S. Open.
“It just takes time to understand what’s going on,” she said, “to understand how I’m feeling and work through this… to find a way to get back to that little girl who just wants to go out there and play.” Have fun and perform for everyone A show. “
Raducanu wanted to do the same. She said when she walked onto the field she was shocked to see thousands of fans filling the comfortable 1573 Stadium. She’s trying not to pay attention to the potential outcome, and in just three games since her return, whatever the outcome, that’s going to be her life now.
“The difference between me losing in the first round and doing well in the tournament is really, really small,” she said. “It’s just the way I move, the way I do things. I would say, don’t be so drastic because I know it’s not far away. The more I keep practicing, it will show up.”
After her win, she lingered on the pitch for a long time, soaking in the praise, signing autographs and posing for selfies around the stadium, her fresh start now officially underway. Raducanu will face Chinese player Wang Yafan in the second round.
“The time away made me very hungry,” Raducanu said. “I’m just happy to be healthy again and no longer in pain.”
deeper
Novak Djokovic is looking for his game, his mojo and tissues
(Top photo: James D. Morgan/Getty Images)
