NEW YORK (Dispatches) -
Naomi Osaka, once again, found herself on the wrong side of a third-round upset on Friday night.
Osaka fell to Canadian teenager Leylah Fernandez in the third round of the U.S. Open in New York, marking her third straight loss in Round 3 of a tournament since she was defeated at the Olympics in Tokyo.
Fernandez, 18, pulled off the upset 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 victory.
The win was the biggest of her career, and it will land her the deepest she’s ever been in a Grand Slam.
Fernandez is 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 knocked off Stefanos Tsitsipas earlier in the night on the men’s side.
The match was a tight one essentially the whole way through, as neither player took 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 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 gave up only one point in the process.
The second set was much of the same, and the two found themselves tied 4-4 midway through.