At 9pm on Saturday, Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez will walk onto the court inside the biggest tennis stadium in the world with the chance to make history.
The teenagers were born just two months and 337 miles apart in Canada and have known each other since they were 12.
Their one official match ended 6-2, 6-4 to Raducanu, but a lot has changed since junior Wimbledon in 2018.
“Whenever we saw each other at tournaments, we would be friendly and say hello. [Leylah is a] very nice girl. We get on well. But, no, we don’t really stay in contact,” said Raducanu this week.
On Friday, the Telegraph watched both of their penultimate training sessions and how each one is preparing to face the other.
Briton keeps it simple
Raducanu walked out onto the court looking relaxed in an oversized Nike hoodie, with her racquet bag on her back, stopping to tell reporters that she was “feeling great,” and flashing her winning smile.
With a hop, skip and a jump, she eased her way into the warm up, raising her knees high, but with no real sense of urgency, even if she was 10 minutes late for her allotted time slot.
But as soon as she picked up her racquet, the game face was on. Raducanu has extraordinary game awareness and often dictates her sessions, telling coach Andrew Richardson – a 6’7” man-mountain and former Wimbledon third-rounder, what she wants to work on.
On Friday, she kept it simple.
Returns, winners and serves dominated her session. Physio Will Herbert acted as a ballboy and agent Chris Helliar busily studied his phone. He’s been doing that a lot over the past week – no surprise perhaps when she has been described as the most marketable sportsperson in Britain.
Raducanu’s return game is her speciality. As her former coach Mark Petchey told Telegraph Sport last week, “on those occasions when I asked her what she wanted to do, nine out of 10 times she would say ‘return of serve’. So, the fact that she is on her way to becoming the best returner in the world is no fluke.”
So far this tournament, she has successfully returned 81 per cent of the serves she has faced. Fernandez’s success rate is 73 per cent.
On Friday, she had Richardson rain down serves on her, which she dispatched masterfully to his right and left, often finding the corners of the court.
Raducanu’s serve, though not the fastest, has also proved to be a real asset this tournament.
She has only been broken five times in New York. She has won 47 service games.
Finally, Raducanu worked on her winners, rifling shots hard and deep across the court and down the line. The feeding from Richardson was constant, but each ball was expertly swatted away in whichever direction she chose.
After a sit-down and a debrief Raducanu made her way over to a swelling crowd of people who ventured down to practice court 3. Standing 15ft below them, she looked up, smiled for selfies and waved as she jogged back to her belongings.
The session, she said afterwards, was “good, thanks.”
Leylah Fernandez ready for Raducanu
A couple of hours later, Leylah Fernandez stepped onto the court, also reporting that she was “feeling great.”
Masked up to walk past a throng of fans, the 19-year-old, who celebrated her birthday on Monday and brought cupcakes for the other women in the locker room, similarly started going through the motions with a jog and some lunges.
But then she went to the back of the court and started sprint work.
On the command of her coach she would launch her 5’6” frame forwards towards the service line and swing an imaginary racket, as if hitting a cross court winner.
Then, she moved onto strength work, using resistance bands to perform one-arm reverse fly exercises and get the muscles in her shoulder warmed up.
Only after 10 minutes did she pick up a racquet. Fernandez’s session was evidently much more tailored to Raducanu’s game than Raducanu’s was to Fernandez’s. Most of her time was spent behind the baseline, engaging in rallies lasting 20 shots or longer, building up speed and consistency.
Fernandez has won 51 rallies of nine or more shots this tournament. She has lost 50. Raducanu by comparison has won 39 and lost just 23.
Next, she moved onto shifting her opponent out wide and barreling a winner down the line. Over and over again she would swing her left-handed forehand to move her coach to his left, and push him out even further on the follow up.
When the weak return came back to her she pounced, opening up her body and the face of her racquet to fire the ball down the opposite tramline.
Like Raducanu, she was not afraid to tell her coaches what she wanted, asking for balls to be hit back much flatter – mimicking the Briton’s style.
Overall, Fernandez had a more varied session. In between exercises she would sit down, deep in contemplation, grabbing an Evian water bottle and staring at a distant court where Alexander Zverev was getting ready for his semi-final against Novak Djokovic.
Even the appearance of the adorable Noah Soares, the six-year-old son of Bruno, Jamie Murray’s doubles partner did not put her off.
Fernandez practiced volleying at the net and playing passing shots past someone who is up at the net against her. Both players are strong when they move forwards. Raducanu has won 39 of 46 points at the net while Fernandez has 56 from 77.
At the end of the session, was serving. The difference in speed was noticeable even if they are only a few miles per hour apart. Raducanu has hit 110mph this tournament, while Fernandez has hit 107mph. Raducanu’s average second serve is 88.7mph, compared to Fernandez’s 86.1mph.
After another debrief, she waved to the crowd – no stopping for selfies – and left the courts. When asked how the session was, she said: “It was awesome, I loved it.”
Coaching comparisons
The caveat with Fernandez is that her principal coach Jorge – who is also her father – is not here. A deeply superstitious man, he has worn the same socks and underwear for each of her matches, while sat at home in Florida.
He is, in his own words “a very, very demanding and tough coach.”
“Whenever we lose, we get back to work really hard,” he said. “I get called an old-school coach a lot. I believe in the grind. I believe in the hard work. I believe in the suffering. If we do that enough, then we get really, really strong.”
Raducanu, on the other hand, says that Richardson is a calming influence on her.
“If I’m getting intense or too fired up or expect too much from myself, he’s very, very good at just relaxing me and reassuring me,” she said.
Raducanu winds down by listening to jazz and puts her phone away – only messaging her parents sporadically.
Fernandez is on the phone constantly.
Her father said on Friday: “I’ll talk to her for her tennis match the night before. Then in the morning we just talk about what her day’s going to look like, just a quick reminder of what she needs to be training and warming up.
“Then right before her match we have a last conversation before she goes on. That’s kind of like the father/daughter talk.
“It’s more based on sentiments and emotions. It’s almost like a virtual hug and a kiss. Good luck, you know what to do. It’s more of a motivating conversation.
“It’s really based on what I’m feeling from her. If I’m feeling that she’s nervous, we talk a little bit about that. If I’m feeling that she’s scared, we talk about that.”
Then it’ll be showtime.
“It will be a tough match for sure. She’s playing great tennis. But I think I’m also playing very good tennis,” said Raducanu on Thursday night. “Yeah. I’m excited to go out there.”