Canadians aiming to make great US Open memories as tournament begins

NEW YORK — For the six Canadians entered in the 2022 U.S. Open, the final Grand Slam tournament of the season is a place where they’ve created indelible memories, and also suffered crushing disappointments.

Their mission this year is to create more of the former and relegate the latter into their tennis rear-view mirror.

Leylah Fernandez, Félix Auger-Aliassime, Bianca Andreescu, Denis Shapovalov and Rebecca Marino in singles, and Gabriela Dabrowski in doubles, begin the quest on Monday to write a happy next chapter.

The USTA National Tennis Center was the backdrop for Fernandez’s star-making turn a year ago, when she reached the women’s singles final as an unseeded player and captured the hearts of tennis fans in Canada and around the world.

Fernandez upset three top-five players — including defending champion Naomi Osaka — on the way to an all-teenage women’s singles final. But she didn’t win a set in losing to Great Britain’s Emma Raducanu, who won 10 matches from the qualifying through to the title and whose Cinderella story eclipsed even the Montreal native’s own.

Fernandez, who will turn 20 during the second week of the tournament, has since risen to a world ranking of No. 14. She has signed multiple sponsorship deals and is now an established presence on the WTA Tour who is no longer the hunter, but among the hunted.

Her spring was a washout after suffering a stress fracture in her foot at the French Open, where her quest ended in the quarterfinals. She missed Wimbledon and didn’t return until the National Bank Open in Toronto two months later.

Fernandez comes into New York with just one match win in the two tournaments since her return.

“I think my initial thought when I first got here was, ‘Wow, it's so big.’ I