(VIDEO) “Do you actually want to play tennis?”: Leylah Fernández stands silent as father Jorge delivers brutal courtside reprimand in Strasbourg

Controversy has emerged in the last hours around the father of Leylah Fernández due to the tense moment he protagonised together with his daughter during the Internationaux de Strasbourg. The world No. 24 fell in straight sets against her compatriot Victoria Mboko and received strong reprimands from her father and coach.

Fernández rose to the forefront of the world tennis scene back in the 2021 US Open, when, without being seeded, she reached her first Grand Slam final – at just 19 years old during the tournament – with victories over players such as Naomi Osaka, Angelique Kerber and Aryna Sabalenka.

After losing that final to Emma Raducanu, she has remained relatively consistent at the top level. She has hovered around the top 30 for much of recent years and has won several titles – although she has not managed to fully convince in major tournaments or WTA 1000 events so far.

Her father, Jorge Fernández – former footballer and currently Leylah’s coach – was the protagonist of the tense moment experienced in her latest appearance in Strasbourg, due to the strong criticism from the Ecuadorian coach towards his daughter’s silence.

Fernández entered the Strasbourg Open as the 7th seed and met expectations by defeating Leolia Jeanjean and Magdalena Fręch on her way to the quarterfinals. There, the world No. 24 faced her compatriot, 19-year-old Victoria Mboko, currently world No. 9 and the tournament’s top seed.

The match was dominated by Mboko, who wasted several chances to close out the first set when she was leading 5–1. Fernández saved up to six set points against her and closed the gap, but it was not enough to salvage a first set in which she could not maintain momentum when it seemed she would complete a comeback.

The break arrived, and it was there that Leylah took advantage of the rest period to approach her father and coach, Jorge Fernández, who reprimanded her in strong terms – captured by the television broadcast and later widely shared on social media.

“How many times do I have to shove it right in your face before you finally adjust your game?” Jorge Fernández told his daughter. “You have so many open opportunities for parallel shots, and you just blow them all, you blow every single one. You just don’t want to listen.”

Fernández’s criticism did not stop there, while Leylah remained silent listening to her father, who then compared Mboko’s strong current form – currently the Canadian No. 1 – with his daughter Leylah’s lack of major results in Grand Slam tournaments.

“This girl is a solid Top 10 player. She reaches Grand Slam quarterfinals, something you have not done in the last four years,” he said. “If you want to return to that level, you have to bring out your game, get your head in it, and trust everything you know.”

Since her run to the 2021 US Open final, Fernández holds a 17–16 record in Grand Slam tournaments and has only once reached the second week of a Slam again, back at the 2022 French Open, when she reached the quarterfinals before losing to Martina Trevisan, in a match where Fernández ended up injured and playing almost stationary during the final set.