Leylah Fernandez to lead Canada's Billie Jean King Cup team against Latvia

Leylah Fernandez will lead Canada into a Billie Jean King Cup qualifying tie against Latvia next month in Vancouver.

The 19-year-old Fernandez is Canada's top-ranked women's tennis player at No. 21 in the world. She is coming off a successful defence of her WTA Monterrey Open title on the weekend.

Fernandez, from Laval, Que., will be representing Canada at the Billie Jean King Cup for the fourth time. She has won her last three matches at the women's international tennis tournament, including an upset over then-world No. 5 Belinda Bencic of Switzerland in 2020.

WATCH l Fernandez overcomes power outage, 5 match points to win Monterrey Open:

Vancouver's Rebecca Marino, who is coming off a win at a Challenger event in Arcadia, Calif., was also named to the team, along with Ottawa's Gabriela Dabrowski — ranked No. 9 on the WTA Tour in doubles — Montreal's Francoise Abanda and Carol Zhao of Richmond Hill, Ont.

The winner of the tie, scheduled for April 15-16 at the Pacific Coliseum, will qualify for the 2022 Finals in November.