Canada’s Leylah Fernandez advanced to her first French Open quarter-finals appearance with a win on Sunday at Roland Garros.
Fernandez, the 2021 U.S. Open runner-up, took a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 win over the United States’ Amanda Anisimova in just under two hours.
The 19-year-old from Montreal will take on Italy’s Martina Trevisan after she beat Aliaksandra Sasnovich, of Belarus, 7-6 (10), 7-5.
The 19-year-old Fernandez had more than twice as many winners, 35, as unforced errors, 17, and continued her run of impressive returning at the tournament. She broke Anisimova six times and now has won 23 of her opponents’ service games through four matches.
Fernandez had never won more than two consecutive main-draw matches on clay until this trip to Paris.
“Today I was able to fight through some difficult moments and just enjoy the game as much as possible,” she said. “Just to have another opportunity to play on [Court] Philippe Chatrier … was just an amazing atmosphere and a great feeling for me.”
The Canadian made a breakthrough last year at the U.S. Open by making it all the way to the final before losing to Emma Raducanu in a matchup between a pair of unseeded teenagers.
WATCH | Fernandez makes it through to French Open quarters:
Canadian Leylah Fernandez defeated American Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals in Paris for the first time in her career.
Fernandez, the youngest player to win a WTA title in 2022, is seeded 17th at the French Open.
The 27th-seeded Anisimova was a semifinalist at Roland Garros in 2019 at age 17. The American eliminated four-time major champion Naomi Osaka in the first round this year.
Auger-Aliassime pushes Nadal to 5th set
On the men’s side of the draw, Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime managed to push 13-time French Open champion, Rafael Nadal to a fifth set, but could not put away the 21-time Grand Slam champion.
The Spanish clay court master topped the Canadian 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 across nearly 4 1/2 hours of even, entertaining tennis in the fourth round at Court Philippe Chatrier.
By the end of only the third five-setter Rafael Nadal has played in 112 career French Open matches, as the sun and temperature descended and the chants of “Ra-fa! Ra-fa!” filled the evening air, the man known as the King of Clay showed precisely what this meant to him.
WATCH | Nadal battles past Auger Aliassime:
Rafael Nadal had to fight for a five-set victory over Canadian Felix Auger Aliassime and will now face Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals.
With every sprint-slide-and-stretch to reach a seemingly unreachable shot off the yellow racket of Auger-Aliassime; with every right-to-a-corner winner; with every well-struck volley, Nadal would hop or throw an uppercut or scream “Vamos!” — and, often, all of the above.
Nadal got through his first serious test of this French Open by edging No. 9 seed Auger-Aliassime 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 across nearly 4 1/2 hours of even, entertaining tennis in the fourth round Sunday at Court Philippe Chatrier.
And the reward? A tantalizing matchup against rival Novak Djokovic, which will come in the quarter-finals on Tuesday.
Nadal improved to 3-0 in five-set matches at the clay-court tournament he has dominated the way no one ever has dominated any Grand Slam event. Overall he is 109-3 here, and two of those defeats came against Djokovic, including in last year’s semifinals.
Here is how significant their rivalry is: Tuesday’s meeting will be their 59th, more than any other two men have faced each other in the sport’s professional era. Djokovic leads 30-28, although Nadal has a 7-2 advantage at the French Open.
The No. 1-ranked Djokovic, twice the title winner at the French Open, is just one behind Nadal’s record haul of Grand Slam trophies, tied with Roger Federer at 20.
“Obviously, a well-anticipated match, I think, when the draw came out, for a lot of people. I’m glad that I didn’t spend too much time on the court myself up to quarter-finals, knowing that playing him in Roland Garros is always a physical battle, along with everything else,” said Djokovic, who beat 15th-seeded Diego Schwartzman 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 earlier Sunday and has won all 12 sets he’s played in the tournament.
“It’s a huge challenge,” Djokovic said about the prospect of facing Nadal, “and probably the biggest one that you can have here in Roland Garros. I’m ready for it.”