First Grand Slam singles final contested by two unseeded players (open era)

Teenagers Emma Raducanu (UK, b. Canada) and Leylah Fernandez (Canada) contested the US Open final on 11 September 2021 after starting the tournament with WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) world rankings of 150 and 73, respectively. Raducanu, 18, became the 13th non-seeded player – and the fifth woman since 2007 – to win a Grand Slam singles trophy as her “fairytale in New York” ended 6-4, 6-3 in her favour. On 13 September 2021 Raducanu was confirmed as the new world No.23 (2,571 points), while runner-up Fernandez climbed to No.28 (2,254 points), with both players set to be among the 32 seeds for the first Grand Slam of 2022 in Australia.

The duo’s meteoric rise up the rankings is best illustrated by the players they’ve overtaken owing to their runs to the US Open final, including 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams (No.41), 2017 French Open winner Jelena Ostapenko (No.30) and two-time Australian Open titlist Victoria Azarenka (No.32), while another teenage prodigy, Cori “Coco” Gauff, was ranked 19th in the world as of 13 September 2021.