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| - Sofia Kenin said her maiden Grand Slam win this year meant she was finally getting the respect she deserved as she breezed into round three of the US Open on Thursday. The reigning Australian Open champion dispatched unseeded Canadian teenager Leylah Fernandez in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3 inside an empty Arthur Ashe Stadium. Afterwards, the 21-year-old said it took winning at Melbourne in January for her to step out of the shadow of American peers who she felt were receiving more attention. "Yeah, definitely sometimes I did feel I was overlooked, I wasn't really taken serious, different things," she told reporters. The Moscow-born player is one of a crop of American women to have progressed to the top of the women's game in recent years, including 2017 US Open champion Sloane Stephens and 16-year-old sensation Coco Gauff. "Obviously winning Aussie definitely really helped with my confidence, changed, like, my image drastically," continued Kenin. "After that I feel like people know me and respect me. I obviously did it for myself. "(But) of course it's always nice to get back at the people I guess who didn't really believe in you or treat you fair," she added. Kenin, fourth in the world rankings, is yet to drop a set at Flushing Meadows as she bids for her second Grand Slam title of the year, and of her career. She had suffered a surprisingly early exit at last week's Western & Southern Open tune-up tournament and admitted coming into the US Open feeling "stressed," but she said was over that now. "Definitely I feel much more settled. I feel like I found a groove. I'm playing well in those two matches," Kenin explained. She will take on 27th seed Ons Jabeur of Tunisia, who she defeated on her way to her Australian Open win, for a place in the fourth round at the Billie Jean King US National Tennis Center. Kenin defeated Spain's Garbine Muguruza in three sets in the Australian Open final in February. pdh/rcw
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