Naomi Osaka, once again, found herself on the wrong side of a third round upset on Friday night.
Osaka fell to Canadian teenger Leylah Fernandez in the third round of the US Open in New York, marking her third-straight loss in the third round since she fell at the Olympics in Tokyo.
Fernandez, 18, pulled off the upset win after a tight battle at Arthur Ashe Stadium after a big second set tiebreaker, which led her to the 7-5, 6-7 (7-2), 6-4.
The win, by far, marked the biggest of her career — and it will now land her the deepest she’s ever been in a Grand Slam.
“From the very beginning, right before the match I knew I was able to win,” Fernandez said on the court after the win.
Fernandez is now the second 18-year-old to come up with a massive upset over a No. 3 seed on Friday, following Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz — who.
Fernandez takes advantage of Osaka missteps
The match was a tight one essentially the whole way through, as neither player was able to take more than a two-game lead at any point.
Fernandez rallied back from an early hole to take a 1-0 lead in the first set, and kept moving back and forth with Osaka until she took a 5-4 lead with a dominant ninth game.
That, though, is when Osaka turned it on.
The third-ranked player in the world rattled off the next three games to close out the set, and only gave up one point in the process.
The second set was much of the same, and the two found themselves tied up 4-4 midway through.
Fernandez then jumped up 5-4 once again, before Osaka rattled off a pair of wins to take the lead after breaking Fernandez with a backhand winner in the eleventh game.
Fernandez, though, forced a tiebreak after Osaka made an unforced error and then won the next five points after multiple Osaka errors — something that clearly threw her off her game. At one point she even threw her racquet onto the court out of frustration.
Though she escaped with a single point after Fernandez missed the mark on a return, Fernandez closed out the tiebreaker quickly on two more Osaka errors to take the second set and force a third.
Fernandez kept things rolling into the final set, where she took a quick 3-1 lead and seemed poised to close out Osaka with ease. Fernandez then battled to a 5-4 advantage and won the final game with four quick shots to close out Osaka and make it into the fourth round of the tournament.
Fernandez will now take on Germany’s Angelique Kerber, who is ranked No. 17 in the world and is fresh off her win over Sloane Stephens.
“It’ll be a battle,” Fernandez said. “We’re going to have fun, I’m going to put on a show like I did tonight, and we’ll see how it goes.”
This post will be updated with more information shortly.
