NEW YORK — “Venus, she’s a legend. She’s an icon. Growing up, when I first started playing tennis, people asked me, ‘Who did you watch when you were growing up?’ I always said Justine Henin and the Williams sisters.”
Leylah Fernandez said that matter of factly, on the rooftop of the player clubhouse at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio during a casual conversation in early August.
Less than a month later, in a scene she likely would not have predicted, she was sharing a court with her idol on Louis Armstrong Stadium in front of more than 14,000 rabid fans who were no doubt thrilled to have one more opportunity to see Venus play.
And the result was a good one for the American-Canadian pairing. The duo, which accepted a wild card into the US Open doubles draw on Tuesday, upset sixth-seeded Lyudmyla Kichenok and Ellen Perez, 7-6 (4), 6-3, in their first-round matchup on an unseasonably windy day in Queens. (It was downright uncomfortable if you were dressed for summer, though the fired-up crowd hardly seemed to notice.)
Towering over her partner — a former US Open singles finalist and doubles quarterfinalist — and looking at times like a big sister, the 45-year-old Williams earned her first win in three New York tries after bowing out in the revamped mixed doubles tournament last week and losing to Karolina Muchova on Monday.
It looked bleak to start, with Williams and Fernandez falling behind 5-2 in the first set, but they rallied to even it at 5. And with the thunderous crowd firmly in their corner, they eked out the tiebreak to take the first set and grab firm control of the match.
The next set was far less dramatic, as the unseeded pair jumped out to a 4-1 lead and comfortably closed it out.
“I’m used to being the big sister,” Williams told reporters after the match, “so I’m kind of asking her what she wants. It’s important for her to feel comfortable. Theoretically I have more experience, but she’s been playing a lot more matches, so maybe that makes us neck and neck in terms of how we can compete.
“But I think we just had to see what happened, because you never know what’s going to happen in a match and you have to adjust. Once we got down, I feel like we just put our foot on the gas.”
It was a full circle moment for the 22-year-old Fernandez, who remembers practicing with Venus outside of Lexington, Kentucky back in 2020. She was new to the Hologic WTA Tour at the time and didn’t know many players, and the gesture was a meaningful one.
“I thought I was going to be very intimidated, but she was super nice and welcoming,” Fernandez recalled during the Cincinnati Open.
She certainly appeared nice and welcoming again on Thursday, as the two embraced after securing the win.
This was Williams’ first doubles victory in Queens in 11 years, though she’s certainly no stranger to doubles success at this venue. The seven-time Grand Slam singles champion won the doubles tournament here in 1999, alongside her sister Serena, and the pair won it a second time in 2009.
Williams and Fernandez will play Eri Hozumi and Ulrikke Eikeri in the second round on Saturday.
