Winning a tournament is certainly a big deal for any tennis player. No matter how long you have been playing, emerging victorious is always an overwhelming moment for a player. And recently the 21-year-old Canadian tennis player was greeted with the best experience of her life in a long time as she won the Hong Kong Open. Yes, we are talking about Leylah Fernandez.

Leylah has a career high ranking of number 13 till now which is quite accomplished for such a young player. And today she won a tournament in 594 days for the first time. As cool as it sounds, it was certainly an emotional time for her, and this was clear from her winning speech.

Leylah Fernandez gets emotional as she lifts the winner trophy for the first time in almost 600 days

Leylah has been trying her luck so hard for so long in the tennis world. She competed in the US Open as well as the China Open this year along with many other tournaments but failed to win either. But today, her hard work showed, and she won the Hong Kong Open against Katerina Siniakova.

She defeated her in a round of 3 sets and emerged victorious. In her winning speech, she said, “Wow. I want to give a special thank you to the fans. To Hong Kong. Thank you for coming & watching women’s tennis. It means the world to us. I’d like to congratulate Katerina. You played an amazing tournament. Today was a tough battle. I enjoyed every moment of it. So, thank you for making this hard for me. Hopefully, we have many more.”

Her appreciation was not only towards her fans, but also for her the people who came to simply watch women’s sports. She even made sure to acknowledge the tough fight her competitor put up. This shows how graceful and amazing she is, not only as a player but also as a person.

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The match between Leylah and Katerina was quite thrilling. Let’s take a look at the specifications.

Leylah fights back Katerina after losing the first set to her

After losing the first set to Katerina, Leylah came back with a 4-3 strike to break the lead of the other player at 4-0. And then later she also came out on top with a 25-point game where she was able to save 6 break points. Leylah showed an empowering hold of service. However, the match again got to a tie situation.

But Fernandez kept on rolling points right after an immediate break. In the third set, she set the lead at 3-1. And finished the match with a win finally after 4-4 where Katerina was able to save the first 2 points but missed the third one.

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