Tennis: Lyla Fernandez is Female Athlete of the Year

Vancouver. B.C.

Giant Killer

By Charmaine Janis Rodriguez

After an outstanding performance in the US Open tennis final last summer, Filipina-Canadian tennis sensation Leylah Fernandez was named The Canadian Press female athlete of the year and winner of the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award.

“I’m very honoured to be amongst these athletes who’ve done so much for women’s sports, and their respective sports, and even outside of their sports,” the 19-year-old Fernandez said in a report by The Canadian Press.

The Bobbie Rosenfeld Award is presented annually to Canada’s best female athlete, as decided by a poll of Canadian sports journalists.

Soccer player Christine Sinclair took the Rosenfeld honour last year.

“Growing up, I’ve read about (Sinclair) in the news. I’ve seen how much she’s accomplished and I’m honoured to have my name right beside hers,” Fernandez, a Montreal native, added.

Nicknamed a giantkiller for slaying tennis giants in this year’s US Open finals, the 5’4”-tall Fernandez attributed her success to the coaching of her father, Jorge, who is a former soccer player of Ecuadorian origin and the support of her mother Irene Exevea, who is a Canadian of Filipino origin. Irene’s father and mother are reportedly from Ilocos Norte and Leyte, Philippines, respectively.

She started getting international attention when she defeated defending champion Naomi Osaka in the third round and won against accomplished players like Angelique Kerber, Elina Svitolina and Aryna Sabalenka en route to the final. Although fellow teenager and British qualifier Emma Raducanu won the final match, Fernandez earned the crowd’s love by her amazing speech at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York.

“I know on this day it was especially hard for New York and everyone around the United States,” she told the crowd, mindful that it was the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. “I just want to say that I hope I can be as strong and as resilient as New York has been the past 20 years. Thank you for always having my back, thank you for cheering for me. I love you New York and hope to see you next year,” she added, drawing applause from over 23,000 spectators there.

She also earned her first career WTA Tour title in 2021 and surged up the world rankings to enter  the top 25.

In addition to her first Grand Slam final appearance, Fernandez — who started the year ranked 88th in the world — won the Monterrey Open in March. She also helped Canada post a 4-0 win over Serbia in the Billie Jean King Cup playoffs in April, The Canadian Press report added.

It also said that the Rosenfeld race was a close one this year with Fernandez receiving 12 of 45 votes cast by sports editors, writers and broadcasters across Canada. Swimmers Penny Oleksiak and Maggie Mac Neil finished with 10 votes apiece.

“This award is going to be one of many she wins,” said Tennis Canada president Michael Downey. “We just are so proud of this young woman, both for what she did on court but also what she does off court because her speech after she lost the (US Open) final was one for the ages. We’re just so proud of her,” he added.

Fernandez, who lives and trains in Boynton Beach, Fla., is the third tennis player to win the annual award in the last decade. Bianca Andreescu won it in 2019 and Eugenie Bouchard won it in 2013 and ’14, according to the same report.

 

“Leylah’s run through what is arguably the most difficult of the tennis majors — the US Open — was nothing short of remarkable,” it quoted Kelowna Daily Courier managing editor David Trifunov as saying.

“Her surgical cuts through the field of former champions and world No. 1s – all with what’s becoming her trademark dimpled smile — is precisely the tonic Canadian sports fans needed in a pandemic.”

Fernandez finished the year with a 25-17 record and earned US$1.77 million in prize money.

The Bobbie Rosenfeld Award is named after Fanny “Bobbie” Rosenfeld who became Canada’s Female Athlete of the Half Century in 1950. She was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1949, Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1955 and Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.

Fernandez shares something in common with Rosenfeld as they are both from immigrant parents.

Rosenfeld was born in Ukraine on December 28, 1904 and moved to Canada with her family as a baby settling in Barrie, Ontario.

According to the Canadian Olympic Committee website, Rosenfeld attended Central School and Barrie Collegiate Institute and then moved to Toronto in 1923 where she was working in a chocolate factory.

She started participating in sports, excelling in basketball, ice hockey, softball and track. The beginning of her legendary career was at a picnic where she was persuaded into running the 100 yard dash ultimately defeating the Canadian champion Rosa Grosse and setting a national record. At the 1925 Ontario Ladies Track and Field Championships, Rosenfeld placed first in five events and second in two more. She later would set national records in five different track and field events. Nicknamed “Bobbie’ because of her bobbed haircut, Rosenfeld was not just a star on the track, she was a star on the softball diamond, the basketball court and on the hockey rink, winning major titles everywhere she competed.

Rosenfeld was an exceptional athlete in what many historians consider a “golden age of women’s sports in Canada,” according to thecanadianencyclopedia.ca.

Winner of two Olympic medals and one of the first Canadian women to compete at the Games, she excelled in numerous sports, including athletics (track and field), basketball, hockey and softball.

Rosenfeld’s success and popularity helped pave the way for women’s sport — one of the “Modern Women” of the interwar period, her achievements challenged social norms and assumptions about women’s abilities, and she became a role model for young women, particularly those from the working class.

Arthritis forced her into athletic retirement in 1933. The next year, she became the coach of the Canadian women’s track and field team at the 1934 British Commonwealth Games in London, England.

Then in 1936, Rosenfeld started working as a sports journalist for The Globe and Mail newspaper and took her great wit to her column “Feminine Sports Reel” becoming an advocate for women’s sport. Her last column appeared on December 3, 1958 but she continued to work for the newspaper until 1966.

She died in Toronto in November 1969. The City of Toronto established “Bobbie Rosenfeld Park” in 1991 and Canada Post issued a stamp commemorating her in 1996.