US Open- Leylah Fernandez’s dad on the Canadian tennis star's incredible run.

You may want to watch this tonight. 19 year old Leila Fernandez will take on Arena Sabalenka in the semifinals at the U.S. Open. No big deal. No not at all. You know what if I'm the leaders by the way I wait till this match is over if you want maximum ratings. So her opponent ranked number two in the world. Leila going into this tournament ranked 73rd. All right and one person who knows a thing or two about Leila's journey joins us this morning. It is a pleasure and an honor to welcome her coach and her dad Jorge Fernandez who joins us from Florida this morning. Jorge nice to see you. Good morning. Good morning Jeff. Good morning Carolyn. Thank you very much for having me. Well listen our pleasure. Thank you for being here with us this morning on what is obviously a big day. How are you feeling right now at this moment because Carolyn and I we're nervous wrecks. Why what's going on today? I'm sorry did I miss something because I passed out the last match and I think I just woke up. So did she win? She sure did. This is the thing. This is the thing Jorge. Your dad and your coach uh I don't know how you balance the two. Which one is harder? The dad. The dad is harder because the dad is is you know I have to it's hard enough to be a dad in a normal situation with with um you know with girls you know I have three girls so I come kind of I think I'm becoming an expert and the only thing I can tell you is I don't know anything. Um so in dealing with her with her emotions and her beliefs and you know being able to transition from you know being a young a young young little girl to a young lady you know teenager right everything that's going on and now to a young woman you know she turned 19 at the U.S. Open. We used to miss all her birthdays because it was during Labor Day and everybody would either have the last weekend at camp or getting ready for the first day of school. So I always told her I said you know it doesn't matter because in the future you're going to be at the U.S. Open anyway so really it doesn't matter and you know I was obviously saying it just to make her feel better. So we had to deal with all those little emotions throughout the years and I think being a dad is the most difficult thing because you know you can be a horrible coach you just can't be a horrible dad. Well tell us a bit about Layla's tennis journey and has she always had uh she's got such a fire fire inside her. Has she always had that and that determination? You know it happened it really happened when she she got cut from a provincial development team and she came up to me and she was really hurt about it you know she she was really you know it really I noticed that it really touched her really deeply and I thought you know I was going to get my weekends back so I was kind of happy about it but then I looked in my daughter's eyes and I just I just made her a promise that I would always help her and I think that every step of the way the fact that not too many people believed in her they believed that she was a good athlete they believed that she could hit a tennis ball but believe that she can make it as far as she's made it was not part of the conversation so I think that initial you know quote unquote traumatic experience for a dream that she had as a little girl really set her on a path of belief and confidence and every time somebody said no or put obstacles it was just her I would always tell her don't let nobody or nothing tell you what you should dream about only you have value on yourself so believe in yourself bet on yourself and good things will happen so I think you know that value system that she has inside you know is now you know we're seeing it live we're seeing it in front of us you know and her her answers aren't arrogant it's just a self-belief that she's had to have you know all these years because you know I mean I've always told her in the training ground you're going to meet somebody that's going to be three times bigger than you are so you better believe in yourself and you know guess what we're going to see tonight right Miss Avalanca at 5 foot 11. Jorge that those are the words you told her then what have you told her today or what are you going to tell her today leading up to tonight's match well I usually separate the conversation in two pieces usually the first piece is obviously tennis and I can't divulge what I'm going to say to her before the match but I can't tell you it's only us it's only us come on oh yeah you guys there's no viewers out there I'm sure nobody nobody nobody watches your show but honestly you know the real the most important message is really look this is only the beginning so this is a day like no other day but we will treat it like every other day that we have trained extremely hard this is this is what we've been training hard for so I'll give her the same message that I've given her the last couple of times you're living your dream go fight for your dream today go fight for it no matter what happens as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and you be proud of you that's all that matters all right some great great words of advice Jorge a real pleasure to have you with us this morning good luck uh in the match later tonight you know we will be cheering Leila on all the way thank you for having me have a great day our pleasure and you can follow and support Leila on her social pages both her twitter and instagram handles we put them up on the screen so go give her some best wishes and go support her there Jorge such a pleasure pleasure was all mine thank you for having me