Stearns eliminates Fernandez to advance at China Open

Leylah Annie Fernandez suffered an early exit on the China Open, falling to American Peyton Stearns 7-5, 6-2 on Friday.

The exhausting hitting American broke Fernandez 5 occasions and received 65% of her first serve factors in a decisive 1 hour, 48-minute victory to e book her place within the spherical of 32.

Competing in her first match for the reason that U.S. Open, the 22-year-old Canadian struggled with consistency on her serve, and Stearns capitalized by staying aggressive on returns.

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The 22-year-old Ohio native discovered the primary edge on the scoreboard, putting a swinging volley winner on her third break level alternative to take an early 2-1 lead within the opening set. The twentieth seeded left-hander discovered a bout of momentum down 4-2, reeling off three consecutive video games as she recovered the break to take a 5-4 edge.

Nonetheless, the world No. 46 shortly erased the deficit and broke Fernandez a second time within the eleventh recreation of the set earlier than closing out proceedings on her serve in 56 minutes.

Following an analogous script to the primary set, Stearns once more utilized return strain and located a break of serve within the third recreation of the second as Fernandez was damage by expensive double faults. A backhand error into the online gave the American a second break of serve to go forward 4-1, and whereas the Canadian recovered one recreation on return, she couldn’t mount a comeback.

Regardless of saving 5 break level probabilities within the seventh recreation, the previous 2021 U.S. Open finalist lastly wilted, and Stearns fired a forehand winner on her sixth alternative to take a 5-2 lead. She’d shut the match out on serve to punch her ticket within the subsequent spherical of Beijing.

With the victory, the American now leads their head-to-head 2-1, additionally notching a win on the Rabat Grand Prix in Morocco final season.

Fernandez drops to 22-20 on the season with the loss – final week the Canadian was chosen to symbolize Canada once more on the Billie Jean King Cup Finals in November.