US Open 2021 tennis - From junior Wimbledon to Grand Slam final, Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez's amazing journey

It was almost exactly 38 months ago that Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez first met on a tennis court.

On July 10, 2018, the two 15-year-olds faced off in the second round of junior Wimbledon. On Saturday evening they will meet in the final of the US Open; the first Grand Slam final between two teenagers since Serena Williams beat Martina Hingis at Flushing Meadows in 1999.

It has been a remarkable journey for both, and one that wasn’t predicted to come full-circle so soon.

Raducanu and Fernandez encountered each other for the first time when they were playing in Under-12 tournaments, bonding over their shared connection of Canada. “I was born in Toronto and she was Canadian, so we kind of, like, made a little relationship back then," said Raducanu, whose parents moved to England when she was two.

"Then I played her at junior Wimbledon. Obviously since then, we've both come very far in our games and as people.”

At Wimbledon it was Raducanu who came out on top 6-2 6-4, following up with another victory before taking just one game in the quarter-finals against Iga Swiatek, who would be crowned champion that year. Earlier that summer Raducanu had won her first ITF professional title in Israel, and she followed up her Wimbledon run by making the quarter-finals of the junior US Open.

But her rise over the last couple of months has been meteoric. She hit a career-high junior ranking of No 20 in 2018 and was balancing school with playing lower-tier events since this summer. There were also injuries that held her back from competing in more tournaments, along with the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I think it has at times been a little bit frustrating because you see the players that you've been growing up with and they're achieving," she told the WTA before Wimbledon. "At the moment there are so many young players that are doing so well on the WTA Tour and the seniors. Sometimes it gets to you a little bit, 'Oh, I wish I could just have the opportunity to compete, then maybe I could do the same.'

"I think that the most important thing is when I'm given the opportunity, like I have been this week, just to try and make the most out of it. This is my opportunity to show that I am there, that my level is there. So far I think I've been doing a pretty good job."

The fact that Raducanu has taken her opportunities this summer should not be that much of a surprise - when she played at junior level she largely did the same. She had a 48-15 win-loss ITF record, winning three titles and reaching two further finals. Even as a junior she stood out, in November 2015 she was named Aegon Junior Player of the Month after winning back-to-back singles titles. The first she won at Under-14 level without dropping a set, the second was at U18 level when, as an unseeded wildcard, she beat the top seed in straight sets in the final. Her progress has ensured she has been well supported along the way by the Lawn Tennis Association, and she has been on the Pro Scholarship Programme, which offers the “highest level of support offered to developing players between 16 and 24 with the best chance of reaching the ATP/WTA top 100 singles”.

Raducanu is now firmly in the top 100, having only made her WTA debut at the Viking Open in Nottingham in June as a wildcard, losing to fellow Brit Harriet Dart 6-3 6-4 in the first round. Then came Wimbledon, where she became the fourth British teenager to make the last 16 and, at 18 years and 239 days old, the youngest.

She took a few weeks off after her Wimbledon exit and then headed across the Atlantic to return to lower-tier events, including the Silicon Valley Classic and the Chicago Challenger, where she beat top seed Alison Van Uytvanck and made the final. With nine matches won in a row in New York the preparation is clearly paying off, and from being outside the top 350 in June she is now set to finish the US Open in the top 50 and as British No 1.

It’s far more than Raducanu expected, given she had booked her flights home for after qualifying.

"Honestly I just can't believe it. A shock. Crazy. All of the above," she said after reaching the final. "I always had dreams of playing in Grand Slams, but I just didn't know when they would come. To come this early, at this point in my career, I've only really been on tour for a month, two months since Wimbledon. It's pretty crazy to me.

“I personally think inside I knew I had some sort of level inside of me that was similar to these girls, but I didn't know if I was able to maintain it over a set or over two sets. To be able to do it and play the best players in the world and beat them, I honestly can't believe it."

Raducanu’s incredible surge to the final is matched only by Fernandez’s amazing performances.

While Raducanu is yet to drop a set, Fernandez is battle-hardened after coming through three-setters against defending champion Naomi Osaka, 16th seed Angelique Kerber, fifth seed Elina Svitolina and second seed Aryna Sabalenka. As Grand Slam runs go, Fernandez’s is almost unrivalled.

Born in Montreal to a Filipino-Canadian mother and Ecuadorian father, Fernandez did not have the same support as Raducanu received from the LTA. She was dropped from the Tennis Quebec development programme at the age of seven and told to concentrate on school. “A lot of people doubted me, my family and my dreams," she said after her semi-final win over Sabalenka. “I remember one teacher, which was actually very funny – at the time it wasn’t, but now I’m laughing. She told me to stop playing tennis, you will never make it, and just focus on school.”

Even though she can laugh about it now, at the time it was painful.

“When she found out, she was really heartbroken," her father Jorge, who has also been her coach, told CBC. "Some kids get disappointed and then they're off to the next new toy, but she felt it."

Jorge says he entertained the possibility of his daughter wanting to quit after a couple of years, but she never did, spending hours on the courts hitting with him and also working on her fitness. It seems fitting that Fernandez has had to battle to the US Open final considering the early setbacks in her career and her determination to succeed.

“She's not a big player, but she has a huge heart and huge determination,” says Sylvain Bruneau, head of Women's Pro and Transition Tennis for Tennis Canada.

Severine Tamborero, Director of High Performance Clubs and U10 Development with Tennis Canada, remembers that Fernandez’s determinations stood out even as a youngster.

“When Leylah was 10, I remember asking her what she wanted to do later on. She said in no uncertain terms that she wanted to be a professional tennis player. When I asked her what her plan was if that didn’t happen, she said: ‘It will definitely happen because it’s what I want!’ and that was it. She’s one of the most singularly determined players I’ve ever met, and that’s the key to her success.”

Fernandez’s rise has been steadier than Raducanu’s sudden breakthrough. She started playing at ITF level in 2017 and two years later won her first singles title and also a junior Grand Slam title at the French Open. She qualified for her first Grand Slam main draw at the Australian Open in 2020 and soon after beat Belinda Bencic, then ranked No 5 in the world, in straight sets in the Fed Cup.

Fernandez continued to show her potential by making the final of the Mexican Open in 2020 – losing to Heather Watson – before lifting her first WTA title at the Monterrey Open a year later, without dropping a set. Like with Raducanu, there was a belief within Fernandez that she could one day beat the best.

“I have been working hard every day since the day I started playing tennis and since the day I set my mind to being a professional,” she said after her quarter-final win over Kerber. “I expected that one day my tennis game is going to come through and that I’m going to be on the big stage in front of a big crowd playing against big players and also getting the wins. I’m not surprised of anything that’s happening right now.”

If Fernandez wins the final she will give Canada its second Grand Slam champion in New York in the last two years after Bianca Andreescu’s victory in 2019. If Raducanu wins she will be Britain’s first female Grand Slam winner since Virginia Wade in 1977. The two teenagers have both been described as “fearless” so far and Eurosport’s Mats Wilander thinks both will win “multiple Grand Slams” during their careers, but who will lift the first this weekend?