After previously winning three WTA 250 titles on hard courts, Canada’s Leylah Fernandez leveled up on the surface by capturing the WTA 500 Mubadala Citi DC Open title in Washington, D.C. on Sunday.
In the clash between former Top 20 players, World No. 36 Fernandez breezed past 48th-ranked Anna Kalinskaya 6-1, 6-2 in the hard-court final to clinch her fourth career WTA singles title.
Fernandez outran localized storms in the American capital, wrapping up proceedings after just 1 hour and 9 minutes of play. She is the first Canadian woman to win the Washington title.
The 2021 US Open finalist Fernandez had been in a minor title drought, hoisting her most recent champion’s trophy at Hong Kong in October 2023. Her most recent final had been just over a year ago, finishing runner-up to Daria Kasatkina on the grass of WTA 500 Eastbourne.
But the Canadian was gritty all week in Washington, battling on court for over nine hours cumulatively just to get to the final, including a 3-hour and 12-minute win over Elena Rybakina in the semifinals.
Kalinskaya, by contrast, had not dropped a set en route to her third career WTA singles final. But those patterns were upended on Sunday, as Fernandez picked up another title while Kalinskaya is still looking for her first.
In the first set, Fernandez stared down a break point at 1-1, but she got out of that game with a hold. And after that early danger, Fernandez was unstoppable for the rest of the set.
Kalinskaya dropped serve with a double fault in the next game, and Fernandez ran away with five games in a row to seal the one-set lead. A winning drop shot by the Canadian closed out the opener after just 30 minutes.
More to come…