NEW YORK — Leylah Fernandez has described it as "really strange" that she and Emma Raducanu have never spoken about their historic 2021 US Open final, saying the pair hope to share stories over coffee once their careers are over. The Canadian and the Briton contested the first all-teenage women's singles final at the US Open in 22 years in New York, where Raducanu beat Fernandez to become the first player in history to win a Grand Slam title as a qualifier.
Fernandez addressed the final in a newly released interview with German outlet Tennis Magazin, which took place earlier this year. "It's really strange, but we've never talked about it," said Fernandez. "Probably because of our mentality: we're competitors, we're still playing against each other. But I think we'll catch up on it when our careers are over. That we can sit down for coffee and say, 'Remember when we managed that?' Then we can share funny stories about it. Right now, we're still so young and have many years ahead of us on the tour. We'd rather look ahead."
The pair have not faced each other in the five years since that meeting in New York, the biggest match of Fernandez's career so far, and their trajectories have diverged sharply. Raducanu holds the higher career-high ranking after reaching world No 10 in 2022, but Fernandez is now the higher-ranked of the two at world No 30. Fernandez has won five of her six WTA titles since the 2021 final, most recently at the WTA 500 tournament in Singapore, while Raducanu is yet to win another title and reached her first two finals since New York at the Transylvania Open and the Queen's Club Championships this year. At Grand Slams, Fernandez came closest to another final with a quarter-final run at Roland Garros in 2022, while Raducanu's best major result since was the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2024.
A hallmark of Fernandez's 2021 run was three wins against top-10 opponents, though both players have struggled for similar success against the elite since. Fernandez still has two more tournaments to play in 2026, while Raducanu appears to have ended her season after not playing since the Queen's final, when she suffered a stress fracture in her lower right foot.