Is It Time to Panic About Leylah Fernandez?

Almost five years ago, Leylah Fernandez walked onto Arthur Ashe Stadium as a 19-year-old who had just beaten Naomi Osaka, Angelique Kerber, Elina Svitolina and Aryna Sabalenka in successive rounds to reach her first Grand Slam final. Four consecutive three-set battles had taken their toll, and Emma Raducanu, playing perhaps the most flawless fortnight in the Open Era, was simply too much to overcome. Even in defeat, though, the future looked luminous for the young Canadian.

That was then. Now, nearly five years on, Fernandez sits at 2-6 to start 2026 and the early promise feels more distant than ever. The question worth asking is whether this is a blip or a pattern, and the more you look at her career, the more the answer leans uncomfortably toward the latter.

Is It Panic Time For Leylah Fernandez?

Consistent in Inconsistency

The frustrating thing about Fernandez is not that she has failed to reach the heights of that 2021 breakout. Most players never get close to a Grand Slam final and she was barely an adult when she did it. The frustration is that in the years since, she has rarely looked like someone building toward something greater.

Her win totals tell the story plainly. After finishing 2021 with a 23-17 record, she has hovered in the low-to-mid thirties for wins in most seasons, with the 2023 campaign standing alone as a genuine high point when she broke the 40-win mark. The losses, meanwhile, have exceeded 20 every single season since 2021. On its own that is not damning, but when your wins only outnumber your losses by around ten, it suggests a player who is treading water rather than swimming forward.

The pattern at the match level mirrors the one in the standings. She strings together two strong performances and then falls apart in the third. She has a good week and then three ordinary ones. Even so, she has won four titles since 2021, but every felt more like a week where everything clicked rather than a sign of sustained momentum. The ability to carry form from one week into the next, which is ultimately what separates the top players from everyone else, has simply not been there.

What is Holding Her Back?

There is no obvious flaw in Fernandez’s game that explains everything. She is aggressive, she is a lefty whose serve angle creates real problems for opponents, and she generates plenty of pace from the baseline. On her best days she is genuinely difficult to beat.

The issue is that her best days come with no warning and leave just as quickly. She breaks serve at a healthy rate but drops her own serve almost as often, and her matches frequently swing wildly from one extreme to the other. The inconsistency in her results is really a reflection of the inconsistency in her ball-striking. She goes for too much, misses too often, and does not yet have the reliable baseline discipline that allows a player to manufacture wins on the days when the big shots are not landing.

The encouraging thing, if you are looking for one, is that none of this is unfixable. These are technical and tactical issues, not limitations of athleticism or competitive spirit.

Why There is No Need to Panic

It is easy to look at Fernandez’s trajectory and feel a sense of missed opportunity, but that framing ignores something important: she is 23 years old. Her birthday is in September, which means she will not even turn 24 until deep into this season. Players have rebuilt their games and broken through at far later stages than this.

Beyond the age point, she has quietly maintained a top-50 ranking for the past few years, peaking at 22 in the world in 2025. That is not the ranking of a player in freefall. It is the ranking of a player who is right on the edge of the top tier, needing refinement more than reinvention.

The talent was never in question. She proved at 19 that she could outplay the best in the world when everything aligned. The work ahead is about making that alignment a reliable occurrence. At her age and with her weapons, that is a completely reasonable thing to expect. The 2-6 start stings, but it is far too early to write off someone who has barely scratched the surface of what she could become.