Photo: Mauricio Paiz
There will be a Canadian playing for some hardware during championship weekend at the Miami Open as Leylah Annie Fernandez and her American partner Taylor Townsend have advanced to the women’s doubles final.
The duo mounted an impressive comeback late Friday night to defeat Magda Linette and Bernarda Pera 1-6, 6-2, 14-12 in the semifinals and book their place in Sunday’s final. Fernandez and Townsend have knocked out several formidable teams en route to the championship match including Timea Babos/Kristina Mladenovic, Beatriz Haddad Maia/Giuliana Olmos, and Lyudmyla Kichenok/Jelena Ostapenko. They’ll have to pull off another upset victory in the final against the second-seeded American pair of Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula if they hope to lift the winners’ trophies.
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This is Fernandez’s second WTA doubles final of the season and the second of her young career. She finished as the runner-up in Auckland at the year’s first tournament alongside Bethanie Mattek-Sands. As for Townsend, she’ll be looking to capture her fourth WTA doubles title in her seventh career final. She’s already won two crowns in 2023, both in Adelaide. Miami will be the first WTA 1000 doubles final for both players.
Gauff and Pegula are one of the top doubles teams in the world and together have won four WTA titles in addition to reaching the final at Roland-Garros in 2022.
Fernandez and Townsend debuted as a team at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells a few weeks ago and reached the quarter-finals. Sunday’s final at the Miami Open will be played at 3:30 p.m. ET.
