WASHINGTON – Leila Fernandez has won the tournament for the biggest title of her career at the DC Open, beating Anna Kalinskaya 6-1, 6-2 in the final on Sunday, bringing together the biggest title of her career at the DC Open.
Fernandez, a 22-year-old left-hander from Canada, ranked 36th and won her fourth singles trophy – all held in a hard court tournament – and in her first event at the WTA 500 event. She was pretty close to the Grand Slam Championship as a teenager at the 2021 US Open, and advanced to the final in New York before losing to Emmaraducanu.
There was mostly a rematch in Washington, but Karinskaya eliminated Radkanu in the semi-finals on Saturday.
Until Sunday, Karinskaya, who ranked 48th, hadn’t dropped his set all week.
However, she couldn’t keep up with Fernandez. Fernandez saved two breakpoints he faced while filming Kalinskaya’s four service games in a match that lasted an hour and 10 minutes. One key: Fernandez scored 10 of the 12 points in the match when Kalinskaya hit a second serve.
This was Fernandez’s first title since it was held at the Hong Kong Open in October 2023.
She arrived in Washington this season with a losing record and has not won more than two games in the same tournament since last November.
With a mix of baseline excellence and strong netplay, Fernandez’s path to the finals included victory over top seed Jessica Pegra, who was the US Open runner-up last year, and third seed Elena Rivakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion.
The victory over Rybakina in Saturday’s semi-finals took three tiebreakers and over three hours.
There was no such drama against Karinskaya, a 26-year-old Russian who fell 0-3 in the tour-level final. She was defeated last year by Jasmine Palini from Dubai and Pegra from Berlin.
The men’s final scheduled for the second half of Sunday was No. 7 seed Alex de Minauauurus, No. 12 Alejandro Davidevich Fokina, who defeated No. 1 at the quarter-finals and No. 12 at the semi-finals, defeating No. 4 at the Ben Shelton.