Leylah Annie Fernandez suffered an early exit at the China Open, falling to American Peyton Stearns 7-5, 6-2 on Friday.
The hard hitting American broke Fernandez five times and won 65% of her first serve points in a decisive 1 hour, 48-minute victory to book her place in the round of 32.
Competing in her first match since the U.S. Open, the 22-year-old Canadian struggled with consistency on her serve, and Stearns capitalized by staying aggressive on returns.
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The 22-year-old Ohio native found the first edge on the scoreboard, striking a swinging volley winner on her third break point opportunity to take an early 2-1 lead in the opening set. The 20th seeded left-hander found a bout of momentum down 4-2, reeling off three consecutive games as she recovered the break to take a 5-4 edge.
However, the world No. 46 quickly erased the deficit and broke Fernandez a second time in the 11th game of the set before closing out proceedings on her serve in 56 minutes.
Following a similar script to the first set, Stearns again applied return pressure and found a break of serve in the third game of the second as Fernandez was hurt by costly double faults. A backhand error into the net gave the American a second break of serve to go ahead 4-1, and while the Canadian recovered one game on return, she could not mount a comeback.
Despite saving five break point chances in the seventh game, the former 2021 U.S. Open finalist finally wilted, and Stearns fired a forehand winner on her sixth opportunity to take a 5-2 lead. She’d close the match out on serve to punch her ticket in the next round of Beijing.
With the victory, the American now leads their head-to-head 2-1, also notching a win at the Rabat Grand Prix in Morocco last season.
Fernandez drops to 22-20 on the season with the loss – last week the Canadian was chosen to represent Canada again at the Billie Jean King Cup Finals in November.
