Leylah Annie Fernandez has chosen her moment well to find her bearings on the ground.
The Quebecer triumphed again, Wednesday, in the second round of the National Bank Open. This time she defeated 11th-seeded Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia in spectacular three sets 7-5, 5-7, 6-3.
The match lasted 2 hours 55 minutes. Might as well say that the spectators got their money’s worth. The game was so long that this day session ended around 8 p.m., with the sound of “Olé, olé, olé” that we hear less often in Montreal these days.
“My favorite victory,” she said on the microphone, during her post-game interview on the field. To please her more, the loudspeakers spit out Don’t Stop Believin’, a song that ends up in her pre-game playlist after she finishes her interview.
Fernandez could have ended hostilities, benefiting from a match point at 5-4 in the second set. It was there that she wasted her first break point of the game, after converting the first four.
In the third round, however, she did not let her luck slip away. After breaking Haddad Maia’s serve in the eighth game, she gave herself three match points with another drop shot. This time, she confirmed her victory on her first chance.
Fernandez has won two games in a row, in the main draw of a WTA tournament, for the first time since the Auckland tournament, his very first of the year, in early January. Moreover, his only bonded gains of the year were recorded in qualifying and at the ITF tournament in Madrid.
In the next round, the left-hander has an appointment with the American Danielle Collins, surprise faller of the Greek Maria Sakkari (no. 8), early Wednesday evening. Collins is a 29-year-old player, ranked 48th in the world, who reached No. 7 in the world last year. She went through the qualifications to participate in the Montreal tournament, but has already knocked down two good players in Sakkari and Elena Svitolina this week.
The Fernandez-Collins clash will be the first game of the evening session on Thursday, according to the preliminary schedule sent to the media.