{"id":13412,"date":"2025-10-19T10:26:51","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T08:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/fernandez-beats-valentova-to-claim-japan-open-title\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:26:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:26:22","slug":"fernandez-beats-valentova-to-claim-japan-open-title","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/fernandez-beats-valentova-to-claim-japan-open-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Fernandez beats Valentova to claim Japan Open title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>World number 27 Fernandez, who won the DC Open in July, secured her fifth career title in Osaka, marking the first time the 23-year-old has claimed two tournament victories in the same year.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Despite playing with heavy strapping on her right thigh, Fernandez dominated the opening set against Valentova, ranked 78th and making her debut in a WTA final. Valentova rallied in the second set but ultimately fell short, hitting a service return into the net to hand Fernandez the win in the deciding set.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Fernandez is set to compete in next week&#8217;s Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, where she will face fellow Canadian Victoria Mboko in the opening round.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13413,"template":"default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-13412","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Canada's Leylah Fernandez clinched her second title of the year, defeating Czech teenager Tereza Valentova 6-0 5-7 6-3 in a hard-fought Japan Open final on Sunday||Canada's Leylah Fernandez clinched her second title of the year, defeating Czech teenager Tereza Valentova 6-0 5-7 6-3 in a hard-fought Japan Open final on Sunday","published_date":"2025-10-19 00:00:00||2025-10-19 00:00:00","news_description":"Canada's Leylah Fernandez clinched her second title of the year, defeating Czech teenager Tereza Valentova 6-0 5-7 6-3 in a hard-fought Japan Open final on Sunday||Canada's Leylah Fernandez clinched her second title of the year, defeating Czech teenager Tereza Valentova 6-0 5-7 6-3 in a hard-fought Japan Open final on Sunday","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18545,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13412\/revisions\/18545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=13412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}