Leylah Fernandez: Best Advice Venus Gave Me
By Richard Pagliaro | Thursday, April 2, 2026
Photo credit: Mike Stone/Getty
A last-minute phone call brought Venus Williams and Leylah Fernandez together last summer.
The pair answered the bell with an inspired run to the US Open doubles quarterfinals last summer.
Fernandez and Venus Williams reprised their doubles pairing at the Miami Open last month where they bowed to Asia Muhammad and Erin Routliffe 6-3, 3-6, 11-13.
In that Miami Open loss, four-time Olympic gold-medal champion Venus dispenses some of the best on-court advice Fernandez said she’s received.
As the left-handed Canadian was ruing her volley errors, Venus told her: Unless you have a time machine you can’t go back to the past, so forget it and keep moving forward.
Fernandez said it was invaluable perspective coming from the 45-year-old Venus.
“She’s a great mentor. I mean, in the last tiebreak, the third set tiebreaker, we were up and we lost it, and I remember I had like a couple of easy shots, easy volleys, and I missed, and I was really heartbroken at the end of the match because I was like really wanted to end the day with a win,” Fernandez said. “And [Venus] told me, you know, like I played great, just to keep going, keep forward. If we all had a time
machine, we would use it, but we don’t, so just keep moving forward.
“So with that quote, that definitely helped me to kind of recharge and look at the bright side and
just keep working the next day and find ways to improve.”
Former world No. 1 Venus Williams won 14 major doubles titles with her sister Serena Williams. The pair never lost a major doubles final together.
Though Venus Williams had not planned to play women’s doubles at the 2025 US Open, she changed her mind after receiving a late-night phone call from Fernandez’s team asking if she would team up with the Canadian.
The pair nearly played again at the 2026 Australian Open, but Fernandez had already committed to another partner.
“With Venus we kind of kept in contact after the US Open,” Fernandez said. “She asked me to
play in Australia, but unfortunately I was already committed with Timea, so that was it.
“And then I did ask if she was going to the Middle East, but she wasn’t. So we were kind
of figuring out the perfect time to play together, and Indian Wells and Miami was the two
tournaments where we could play, and unfortunately, Indian Wells didn’t happen, but there was Miami Open, and it was a lot of fun.”
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