Leylah Fernandez Details How Meeting Billie Jean King and Juan Martin del Potro Inspired Her at US Open 2021

Published 09/08/2021, 8:30 AM EDT

Canadian tennis player Leylah Fernandez has been grabbing the headlines. She recently knocked off the two-time champion Naomi Osaka out of the US Open. At the age of 18 years, the youngster surely has a bright future ahead of her. In June this year, she achieved a career-high ranking of 66 in the world.

At the moment, Leylah Fernandez is enjoying her fairytale run at the US Open. In her first attempt, the youngster has made it to the semifinal stage. The entire sporting community is in awe of what she has achieved as it is not everyone’s cup of tea. She recently had a conversation with Billie Jean King and Juan Martin del Potro.

The teenager revealed the details and stated, “I had a small conversation with BJK. She told me to go out on the court and have fun and keep going for my shots and I did just that today and that obviously worked. Then, meeting JMDP was just pure luck bumping into him and we just had a nice little chat, he wished me luck and we took a picture and we went our merry ways. But it was awesome to meet them, see them and they honestly inspired me to do well today.”

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Leylah Fernandez enjoying her fairytale run

Reflecting on her current performances in the US Open so far, the Canadian player has managed to knock off defending champion Naomi Osaka. After that, she displayed a clinical performance by removing Angelique Kerber from the tournament.

Most recently, she beat Elina Svitolina to book a spot in the semifinals. She will be facing World No. 2 the Belarusian, Aryna Sabalenka. We wish her the very best for the upcoming matches and the rest of the season.

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Leylah Fernandez earned brownie points from me for:
1. Taking photos with del Potro and give us new sightings of him 🥺
2. Calling him a legend 🥺🥺🥺 pic.twitter.com/QixYhFjRw3
— D.ée Gouw (@deziraygouw) September 7, 2021

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I asked 🇨🇦@leylahfernandez about her conversations with former #USOpen champions Billie Jean King and Juan Martin Del Potro on her birthday and what motivating words they said to her.

Below is Leylah’s response: pic.twitter.com/dJyO9VxjGN
— Lukas Weese (@Weesesports) September 8, 2021

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Rohan Kollare is a tennis author for EssentiallySports. Rohan has a post-graduate diploma in Sports Management and a trophy cabinet adorned with accolades won in district and state-level tennis competitions. He has previously worked in Content Operations for Disney’s Hotstar for over a year, covering tennis and Formula One.

Leylah Fernandez Details How Meeting Billie Jean King and Juan Martin del Potro Inspired Her at US Open 2021

Leylah Fernandez enjoying her fairytale run

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