NEW YORK —
Denied the U.S. Open championship trophy, Leylah Fernandez decided to make off with the spotlight instead.
Visibly exhausted, her face both beaming and wet with tears, the 19-year-old Fernandez — bested in Saturday’s women’s final in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, by an even younger British tennis darling —
refused to say goodbye to Flushing Meadows.
Rather: until next time.
“I want to be back here next year,” Fernandez told the fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium, basking in their sustained affection, before she hoisted the runner-up’s ubiquitous silver platter, that perennial symbol of second place.
“Only, with the right one,” she added. “With the right trophy.”
And then, as if the New York crowd didn’t love her enough, Fernandez acknowledged the awkward timing of Saturday’s championship match, coming as it did on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“Thank you for having my back, thank you for cheering me on,” she said. “I hope I can be as strong and resilient as New York has been the last 20 years.”
What might have been a fairy-tale finish for a new Canadian tennis star was instead a coming-out party for a British one: Emma Raducanu, 18, a qualifier who made it through to the end without dropping a single set, taking home the hardware and a US$2.5-million cheque for her trouble.
For Fernandez, what had been a remarkable run to the final ended in disappointment, as well as a measure of controversy.
She seemed to struggle with her serve throughout the afternoon, managing to land only 56 per cent of her first serves and double-faulting five times, often at the most critical moments.
“Unfortunately, today I just made one too many mistakes, and I think Emma noticed it and she took advantage of it,” Fernandez said.
“I’m still disappointed; I think this loss, I’m going to carry it for a very long time, and I think it will motivate me to do better training and be better for the next opportunity I get.”
As she’s done throughout the tournament, just when it began to look like she was flagging, an acrobatic backhand or blistering down-the-line forehand would find a corner of the court just outside Raducanu’s reach.
More than once, she took what seemed a certain win for Raducanu and gradually wore her back to deuce, often ending exhaustive rallies with a delicate little backhand slice that pulled her opponent to the net and out of position.
She did it again at one of the most critical moments of the match: with Raducanu leading 5-2 in the second set and poised over the championship point, Fernandez battled back to win the game to the delight of an appreciative crowd.
Other times, a fearsome cross-court forehand out of nowhere would send Raducanu diving in vain, a wry smile crossing Fernandez’s face.
But the cool-headed Brit had more than a few tricks up her sleeve, including a powerful one-handed forehand Fernandez was often helpless to catch.
The 18-year-old qualifier betrayed no evidence of nerves, often blowing on her fingertips after a hard-won point or piercing the air with a triumphant shout.
“She played incredible tennis,” Raducanu said of Fernandez before carting off the championship trophy.
“I thought the level was extremely high, and I hope we play each other in many more tournaments — and hopefully finals.”
The normally emotive Fernandez seemed almost subdued throughout the match, allowing herself only modest little fist pumps, despite the encouragement of a New York crowd that was clearly smitten with both young stars.
That changed late in the second set, where — sensing opportunity where others might find only despair — the fist pumps came more quickly, the smiles more easily, often with a knowing glance at her trainer and family members in the crowd.
That’s when Raducanu, her left knee bloodied by a sliding shot attempt, was granted a medical time-out, a development that seemed to visibly frustrate her opponent.
Fernandez could be seen arguing with officials about the decision to grant the time-out, particularly at a moment in the match when she was clearly riding a wave of momentum.
“I want to play,” she told the official at one point.
Later, she shrugged it off, saying she wasn’t aware how seriously Raducanu was hurt, and attributed her complaint to the heat of the moment.
“It was just too bad that it happened at that specific moment, with me and the momentum that I had,” she said.
“It’s sports, it’s tennis, and you’ve just got to move on.”
Fernandez, who’s based in Boynton Beach, Fla., but represents Canada, defeated WTA Tour stars Naomi Osaka, Angelique Kerber, Elina Svitolina and Aryna Sabalenka en route to the championship.
She was ranked 73rd in the world at the start of the tournament but has played like a seasoned veteran.
Her opponent was also an unexpected finalist: Raducanu, the world No. 150, is a Toronto native who moved overseas to the London area at age two. She needed to get through the qualifying rounds just to make it to the main draw.
Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime reached the men’s singles semifinals before falling to Russia’s Daniil Medvedev on Friday afternoon.
On Sunday, Medvedev will seek to spoil Serbian sensation Novak Djokovic’s bid to be the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to win four Grand Slam titles in the same calendar year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2021.
CALGARY – MEG Energy says it earned $167 million in its third quarter, down from $249 million during the same quarter last year.
The company says revenues for the quarter were $1.27 billion, down from $1.44 billion during the third quarter of 2023.
Diluted earnings per share were 62 cents, down from 86 cents a year earlier.
MEG Energy says it successfully completed its debt reduction strategy, reducing its net debt to US$478 million by the end of September, down from US$634 million during the prior quarter.
President and CEO Darlene Gates said moving forward all the company’s free cash flow will be returned to shareholders through expanded share buybacks and a quarterly base dividend.
The company says its capital expenditures for the quarter increased to $141 million from $83 million a year earlier, mainly due to higher planned field development activity, as well as moderate capacity growth projects.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
Premier David Eby is proposing an all-party committee investigate mistakes made during the British Columbia election vote tally, including an uncounted ballot box and unreported votes in three-quarters of the province’s 93 ridings.
The proposal comes after B.C.’s chief electoral officer blamed extreme weather, long working hours and a new voting system for human errors behind the mistakes in last month’s count, though none were large enough to change the initial results.
Anton Boegman says the agency is already investigating the mistakes to “identify key lessons learned” to improve training, change processes or make recommendations for legislative change.
He says the uncounted ballot box containing about 861 votes in Prince George-Mackenzie was never lost, and was always securely in the custody of election officials.
Boegman says a failure in five districts to properly report a small number of out-of-district votes, meanwhile, rippled through to the counts in 69 ridings.
Eby says the NDP will propose that a committee examine the systems used and steps taken by Elections BC, then recommend improvements in future elections.
“I look forward to working with all MLAs to uphold our shared commitment to free and fair elections, the foundation of our democracy,” he said in a statement Tuesday, after a news conference by Boegman.
Boegman said if an independent review does occur, “Elections BC will, of course, fully participate in that process.”
He said the mistakes came to light when a “discrepancy” of 14 votes was noticed in the riding of Surrey-Guildford, spurring a review that increased the number of unreported votes there to 28.
Surrey-Guildford was the closest race in the election and the NDP victory there gave Eby a one-seat majority. The discovery reduced the NDP’s victory margin from 27 to 21, pending the outcome of a judicial review that was previously triggered because the race was so close.
The mistakes in Surrey-Guildford resulted in a provincewide audit that found the other errors, Boegman said.
“These mistakes were a result of human error. Our elections rely on the work of over 17,000 election officials from communities across the province,” he said.
“Election officials were working 14 hours or more on voting days and on final voting day in particular faced extremely challenging weather conditions in many parts of the province.
“These conditions likely contributed to these mistakes,” he said.
B.C.’s “vote anywhere” model also played a role in the errors, said Boegman, who said he had issued an order to correct the results in the affected ridings.
Boegman said the uncounted Prince George-Mackenzie ballot box was used on the first day of advance voting. Election officials later discovered a vote hadn’t been tabulated, so they retabulated the ballots but mistakenly omitted the box of first-day votes, only including ballots from the second day.
Boegman said the issues discovered in the provincewide audit will be “fully documented” in his report to the legislature on the provincial election, the first held using electronic tabulators.
He said he was confident election officials found all “anomalies.”
B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad had said on Monday that the errors were “an unprecedented failure by the very institution responsible for ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections.”
Rustad said he was not disputing the outcomes as judicial recounts continue, but said “it’s clear that mistakes like these severely undermine public trust in our electoral process.”
Rustad called for an “independent review” to make sure the errors never happen again.
Boegman, who said the election required fewer than half the number of workers under the old paper-based system, said results for the election would be returned in 90 of the province’s 93 ridings on Tuesday.
Full judicial recounts will be held in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna-Centre, while a partial recount of the uncounted box will take place in Prince George-Mackenzie.
Boegman said out-of-district voting had been a part of B.C.’s elections for many decades, and explained how thousands of voters utilized the province’s vote-by-phone system, calling it a “very secure model” for people with disabilities.
“I think this is a unique and very important part of our elections, providing accessibility to British Columbians,” he said. “They have unparalleled access to the ballot box that is not found in other jurisdictions in Canada.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
WINNIPEG – A public memorial honouring former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools, Murray Sinclair, is set to take place in Winnipeg on Sunday.
The event, which is being organized by the federal and Manitoba governments, will be at Canada Life Centre, home of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets.
Sinclair died Monday in a Winnipeg hospital at the age of 73.
A teepee and a sacred fire were set up outside the Manitoba legislature for people to pay their respects hours after news of his death became public. The province has said it will remain open to the public until Sinclair’s funeral.
Sinclair’s family continues to invite people to visit the sacred fire and offer tobacco.
The family thanked the public for sharing words of love and support as tributes poured in this week.
“The significance of Mazina Giizhik’s (the One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky) impact and reach cannot be overstated,” the family said in a statement on Tuesday, noting Sinclair’s traditional Anishinaabe name.
“He touched many lives and impacted thousands of people.”
They encourage the public to celebrate his life and journey home.
A visitation for extended family, friends and community is also scheduled to take place Wednesday morning.
Leaders from across Canada shared their memories of Sinclair.
Premier Wab Kinew called Sinclair one of the key architects of the era of reconciliation.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sinclair was a teacher, a guide and a friend who helped the country navigate tough realities.
Sinclair was the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba — the second in Canada.
He served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba to examine whether the justice system was failing Indigenous people after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne and the police shooting death of First Nations leader J.J. Harper.
In leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he participated in hundreds of hearings across Canada and heard testimony from thousands of residential school survivors.
The commissioners released their widely influential final report in 2015, which described what took place at the institutions as cultural genocide and included 94 calls to action.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
