In spite of a valiant effort from Leylah Fernandez, British teenager Emma Raducanu, with a bloody knee, overcame the Canadian to win 6-4, 6-3 in the finals and claim the US Open women’s singles title on Saturday. 

Ranked 150th in the world, Raducanu won every set in the tournament without flinching and entered the record books, becoming the youngest Grand Slam winner since Maria Sharapova at 2004 Wimbledon.

Raducanu was already the first player in the professional era, dating to 1968, to come through the qualifying rounds to reach the final of a major tournament. She is also the first player since Serena Williams in 2014 to not drop a set in the US Open.

ALSO READ | What is a calendar Grand Slam that Novak Djokovic is eyeing?

Fernandez, who turned 19 during the torunament, showed incredible heart throughout the tournament knocking out three top-five players en route to the final but couldn’t find the energy for a comeback after playing four straight three-set matches.

Meanwhile, this was the first Grand Slam final featuring two teenagers since the 1999 US Open. Serena Williams, 17, beat Martina Hingis, 18, at that tournament for the first of her 23 major singles trophies.

In the first set, both played out 28 minutes for merely four games, with a break and a hold apiece making it 2-all. The two teenagers blew chances at times but Raducanu was able to come up with the goods on a more consistent basis, at least in the finals.

The initial four games of the second set unfolded in the same manner — 2-all after a break and a hold apiece.

However, Raducanu broke to go up 4-2 soon and held for 5-2 and twice was a point from winning the title in the next game. But she let both of those opportunities slip away by putting groundstrokes into the net.

ALSO READ | All in, let’s do it: Novak Djokovic eyes historic calendar Grand Slam

Then at 5-3, while Raducanu was serving for the match, she slid on the court chasing a ball to her backhand side, bloodying her left knee. A trainer came out to put a white bandage on the cut and, during a delay of more than four minutes, while Fernandez spoke to chair umpire Marijana Veljovic.

When they resumed, Raducanu saved a pair of breakpoints, then converted on her third chance to close it, ending a 108 mph ace. She dropped her racket, landed on her back and covered her face with both hands.

With her victory, Raducanu becomes the first British woman to win a Grand Slam trophy since Virginia Wade at Wimbledon in 1977.

With inputs from the Associated Press