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The choice, for a player like Leylah Fernandez who has the option, is to face a deeper draw (but greater potential rewards) at a higher-level WTA 500, or try for a deep run at a WTA 250.

Fernandez opted for Osaka over Ningbo. And it paid off as she earned her second title of the season with a 6-0, 5-7, 6-3 win over impressive 18-year-old qualifier Tereza Valentova.

That trophy joins the one from the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. in July.

What a week for the Canuckians

“I started off really well, but then Tereza, she’s a fighter. She changed it up in the second set and started attacking, so kudos to her. But I’m just happy with the way I fought in the third, and tried to stay positive most of the time,” Fernandez said.

Seeds fell quickly

The biggest obstacle, from the day of the draw, was going to be No. 1 seed Naomi Osaka, who was in the other half.

But after her second-round win over Susan Lamens, a leg injury suffered during that match forced Osaka’s withdrawal before her quarterfinal. Indeed, she’s missing Tokyo this week as well; her trip to her birth country and the one she represents and which has earned her so many riches, was a bust this year.

***Instead of blowing kisses to the four sides of the court, Fernandez did it Janapese style – bowing*** to all.

No. 2 seed Linda Noskova was out in the first round.

No. 3 Elise Mertens and No. 6 Olga Danilovic were eliminated by Valentova, who was the top seed in qualifying and defeated the far-more-experienced Greet Minnen in three sets in the final round there.

Straight sets – until the semis

Meanwhile Fernandez, the No. 4 seed, defeated quality opponents in the first three rounds – all in straight sets: Hailey Baptiste, Dalma Galfi and Rebecca Sramkova.

She out-slugged a game Sorana Cirstea in the quarterfinals. And then she found herself up against Valentova, who just a year ago was the Roland Garros junior champion – five years after Fernandez herself took that title in 2019.

Title No. 8 for Auger-Aliassime in Brussels

A bagel for breakfast

Out of the gate, Fernandez was all over a clearly-jittery Valentova, who was in her first WTA Tour-level final and only her second higher-calibre final overall after winning the WTA 125 title in Grado, Italy after Roland Garros.

It was 5-0 Fernandez in a heartbeat, after which Valentova returned to her chair and cried it out.

***Valentova let it out after quickly going down 0-5. And then got to work.***

She rallied; up 40-0 in that next game, she ended up getting broken for the bagel. But after that, she competed with everything she had.

In the end, it was nearly three hours before Fernandez could hoist the fifth WTA Tour trophy of her career.

There were some grim moments with Team Leylah, and certainly none of the joy you so often saw from her earlier in her career.

It’s work now. And this was an excellent week in which Fernandez’s serve held up, and she navigated rough patches with aplomb.

Notable was Fernandez’s service game at 4-2 in the third, when father/coach Jorge Fernandez repeatedly yelled her name from the players’ box.

Fernandez got a verbal warning from the chair umpire about that. And the game got messy after that – including a rare foot fault. Valentova broke back. But Fernandez reset and managed to get through from there.

With the title, she squeezes past Victoria Mboko into the No. 22 spot in the rankings, and regains the title of “top Canadian” that she held for a long, long time before Mboko won in Montreal and rocketed to the top of the charts.

And, unlike the players who went to Ningbo and have to make the trip to Tokyo from there, Fernandez need only hop on a bullet train from Osaka and get there in a couple of hours.

(All screenshots from WTA.TV)