Leylah Fernandez is defending 500 WTA ranking points at the Washington Open.
The Canadian star won her third career title at last year’s event, beating Anna Kalinskaya 6-1, 6-2 in the final.
Fernandez has struggled to reach the same heights this year, suffering various early exits at significant WTA events.
Who do you think will win the women’s singles title at the Washington Open this year?
Vote now!
However, she has begun her Washington campaign in some fashion, comfortably beating Magda Linette 6-1, 6-4 on Monday afternoon.
It is vitally important that Fernandez continues to perform well in Washington when considering her ranking ahead of the US Open.
Leylah Fernandez is at risk of falling outside of the US Open seeded positions
Leylah Fernandez recently fell nine spots in the WTA rankings to world number 34.
As a result, she is now on the brink of slipping outside of the US Open seeded positions.
Fernandez is currently set to be seeded 32nd for the US Open due to the likely absences of Victoria Mboko and Hailey Baptiste.
Fernandez is defending a large number of WTA points in Washington – 500 to be exact.
Simply put, if the Canadian does not defend the majority of her points in the American capital, she is likely to fall outside of the seeded spots for the US Open.
Of course, even if Fernandez does suffer an early exit in Washington, she will have the opportunity to regain these points at the Canadian Open and Cincinnati Open in August.
Fernandez did not win a single match across the two WTA 1000 events last year, losing to Maya Joint and Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, respectively.
WTA Rankings
- 28 – Alexandra Eala
- 29 – Jelena Ostapenko
- 30 – Clara Tauson
- 31 – Ann Li
- 32 – Hailey Baptiste
- 33 – Maria Sakkari
- 34 – Leylah Fernandez
- 35 – Donna Vekic
- 36 – Katerina Siniakova
- 37 – Janice Tjen
Who will Leylah Fernandez play next in Washington?
Fernandez, the seventh seed at this year’s event, will play Alexandra Eala or Qinwen Zheng in the Washington Open second round.
Eala and Zheng are set to contest their first-round match on Tuesday.
Fernandez has won her one previous match against Eala, beating the trailblazing Filipina at the 2026 Stuttgart Open.
Fernandez has a 2-2 record against Zheng – the 2024 Olympics champion.
The pair last contested a WTA match at the 2024 Japan Open. Zheng won the quarter-final contest, beating Fernandez 6-0, 1-6, 6-3.
