Leylah Fernandez to miss Wimbledon as her distraught father breaks down while discussing injury

Wimbledon
Leylah Fernandez receives treatment on her foot

Leylah Fernandez won’t play at Wimbledon this year after her father and coach, Jorge, confirmed that she will be sidelined until August due to a foot injury.

2021 US Open runner-up Fernandez received treatment on her right foot during the early stages of her French Open quarter-final match against Martina Trevisan on Tuesday.

The trainer strapped the foot with bandage and gave her a pain killer and she continued, but was seen limping on several occasions. The Canadian eventually went down in three sets against the Italian, but was forced to skip the post-match press conference due to the injury.

After the 19-year-old was omitted from the Wimbledon entry list on Friday, her father confirmed that the injury is a lot more serious than initially thought as she has a grade three stress fracture on the top of her right foot.

When asked what he felt while watching the match, Jorge told Canada’s TSN: “Anger. I was very angry and very concerned. Again, it’s hard because you have both hats on and, of course, as a coach you kind of say like, okay you know what you got yourself into. That’s your decision that you’re going to make, then go ahead.

“That’s one of the problems with the WTA is you don’t get a chance to consult our players. We don’t get a chance to call a simple 30 second time-out and see what is really going on. I know they tried it in the past and just wonder why it stopped.

“I think there was moment where I could’ve put some sense into her. And maybe instead of it being what it is now, it could’ve been a little bit less. Of course as a father I’m concerned and sad and I wanted her to stop.”

The Fernandez camp confirmed that the world No 18 hopes to return to action at the Citi Open in Washington, which starts on August 1.

Leylah Fernandez

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