Winifer María Fernández Pérez (born 6 January 1995) is a Dominican female

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

player. With her club Mirador she competed at the 2015 FIVB Club World Championship. She became well known after a video and later some photos of her playing and training, and personal photos of her--some of them fake--went viral in July 2016. In 2010 she won the NORCECA U18 continental championship Best Libero, Digger and Receiver awards, repeating this awards in the 2012 NORCECA U20 Championship, this time with the gold medal and the Most Valuable Player award. She also won the 2012 U23 Pan-American Cup gold medal just before debuting with the senior national team in the

2012 FIVB World Grand Prix The 2012 FIVB World Grand Prix was a women's volleyball tournament played by 16 countries starting 8 June 2012. The finals were held at the Beilun Sports and Arts Centre in Ningbo, China.CSVFIVB announces pools for 2012 World Grand Prix(In Spanis ...

. Fernández won the World Grand Prix Group 2, 2016 Pan-American Cup and the

2017 Bolivarian Games The 2017 Bolivarian Games, officially the XVIII Bolivarian Games, was an international multi-sport event that was held from 11–25 November 2017, in Santa Marta, Colombia. Host city selection Ciudad Bolivar (Venezuela) and Santa Marta (Colombia) ...

gold medals with her senior team. She won the 2008 Dominican Republic League bronze medal and played with the Azerbaijani clubs

Telekom Baku Telekom Baku (formerly named Rabita Baku) was an Azerbaijani women's volleyball club. Telekom was an eight-time champion of Azerbaijani Superleague and the winner of the 2011 FIVB Club World Championship. History The Rabita Bank was founded in 2 ...

and

Rabita Baku Telekom Baku (formerly named Rabita Baku) was an Azerbaijani women's volleyball club. Telekom was an eight-time champion of Azerbaijani Superleague and the winner of the 2011 FIVB Volleyball Women's Club World Championship, FIVB Club World Champion ...

before playing, with Mirador, in the 2015 Club World Championship.

Personal and early life

Fernández is tall, , was born on 6 January 1995 and hails from

Cienfuegos Cienfuegos (), capital of Cienfuegos Province, is a city on the southern coast of Cuba. It is located about from Havana and has a population of 178,368 in 2022. Since the late 1960s, Cienfuegos has become one of Cuba's main industrial centers, ...

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

. She started playing volleyball at the age of ten, under the guidance of coach Miguel Durán, and relocated in 2009 to

Santo Domingo Santo Domingo, formerly known as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city of the Dominican Republic and the List of metropolitan areas in the Caribbean, largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean by population. the Distrito Na ...

to join the junior national team. As of 2013 she was planning to pursue a degree in Business Administration. She has been described as slick, fast and smart.

Career

2008-2010

Fernández won the

2008 Dominican Republic Volleyball League The 2008 Dominican Republic Volleyball League was the 2nd official season of the event. The SEDEFIR Cup was dedicated to Daniel Toribio. Distrito Nacional's team won their second title in both genders. Teams Women's * Distrito Nacional * Santiago ...

bronze medal with the Dominican club

. She won the 2009 Santiago province championship and the Best Libero award with her club, Cienfuegos. As a 15-year-old she won the Best Digger, Best Receiver and Best Libero awards in the 2010 NORCECA Youth Championship, finishing with her team in fourth place.

2011-2014

Fernández played in the 2011 Girls' Youth Pan-American Cup, winning the bronze medal and the Best Libero award. She won the Best Digger, Best Receiver and Best Libero awards when she helped the Dominican club Cienfuegos win the 2011 provincial tournament gold medal. Fernández helped Santiago to the 2012 Northern Region Cup gold medal in her home country; she contributed by topping the spikers with 15 points. Fernández shared with Ana Binet the libero position in the

, debuting with the senior national team, for which she received mixed reviews. Her national team reached the 12th position. At the 2012 Junior NORCECA Championship she led her under-20 national team to win the gold medal, qualifying them for the 2013 Junior World Championship winning also the Most Valuable Player, Best Digger, Best Receiver and Best Libero awards, expressing how happy she was helping the Dominican Republic to win its first category gold medal. She later helped her national team capture the gold medal in the 2012 U23 Pan-American Cup. She started 2013 by winning the "Most Valuable Player" and gold medal during the Baja California International Cup, held in Mexico. Together with fellow libero player

Brenda Castillo Brenda Castillo (born June 5, 1992, in San Cristóbal) is a volleyball player from the Dominican Republic and plays as a libero. She was a member of the Dominican Republic national team that won fifth place in the 2012 Summer Olympics, while ...

, she was awarded 2012 Volleyball Player of the Year by the Santo Domingo Guild of Sports Writers. She later won the silver medal with her junior team in the 2013 Pan-American Cup held in La Havana, Cuba, where they lost 1-3 to Mexico, but winning the Best Digger and Best Libero awards. Together with

Brayelin Martínez Brayelin Elizabeth Martínez (born September 11, 1996, in Santo Domingo) is a Dominican volleyball player who won the bronze medal in the Volleyball at the 2015 Pan American Games – Women's tournament, 2015 Pan American Games as a member of the ...

and Larysmer Martínez, Fernández won the 7th Cabarete Beach Volleyball Tournament, with a RD$30,000 (approximately US$713 in April 2013) bonus. She traveled in June to the FIVB U20 World Championship, ranking eighth with her national junior team. She took part in the

2013 FIVB World Grand Prix The 2013 FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix was the 21st edition of the annual women's international volleyball tournament played by 20 countries from 2 August to 1 September 2013. Competing nations Qualification process * /sup> The top four N ...

, finishing with her team in the 10th position. In early 2014 Fernández was selected by the Santiago Province Guild of Sports Writers as Volleyball Player of the Year. She also played with the Azerbaijani professional club

as the second Libero, sharing playing time with compatriot Brenda Castillo. She was selected in June to play the

2014 FIVB World Grand Prix The 2014 FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix was the 22nd edition of the annual women's international volleyball tournament played by 28 countries from 25 July to 24 August 2014. The Group 1 final round was held in Tokyo, Japan. The Brazilian star te ...

, but the team went 1-8 and ranked last in the Group 1 of the

FIVB World Grand Prix The FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix was an annual women's volleyball competition created in 1993. The men's version of the competition was called FIVB Volleyball World League, World League. This event should not be confused with the other intern ...

defeating only Turkey 3-2.

2015

After being selected by the Santiago Province Guild of Sports Writers as Volleyball Player of the Year, she played with the Dominican club Mirador, Her club lost its two matches 1-3 to the Swiss Voléro Zürich and 0-3 to the Brazilian Rexona Ades Rio and finally ranking, tying for fifth with the Japanese

Hisamitsu Springs is a women's volleyball team based in Kobe, Hyogo, Kobe city, Hyogo and Tosu, Saga, Tosu city, Saga, Japan. It plays in V.League (Japan), V.League 1. The club was founded in 1948. In July 2020 the team announced an official name change from ...

. Fernández played in the

2015 Montreux Volley Masters The 2015 Montreux Volley Masters is a women's volleyball competition set in Montreux, Switzerland between May 26 – 31, 2015. Turkey won the tournament for the first time by winning 3-2 to Japan in the championship match. Japanese Yuki Ishii was s ...

, and her national team lost the fifth-place match 1-3 to Germany. She later played the NORCECA Champions Cup, winning the gold medal and the qualification for the 2015 FIVB World Cup. At the Pan-American Cup in Peru, she won the silver medal when her team lost 0-3 to the United States the gold medal match. She then played the

2015 FIVB World Grand Prix The 2015 FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix was the 23rd edition of the annual women's international volleyball tournament played by 28 countries from 26 June to 2 August 2015. This was the first time that the Group 1 final round was held in Omaha ...

, ranking with her national team 12th, after finishing 0-9 in the Group 1. She played in Turkey the U23 World Championship having won the bronze medal when her team lost 2-3 to Brazil but defeated Japan 3-2 to claim the bronze medal. Fernández won the silver medal when her national team lost 1-3 the NORCECA Championship to the United States. She then played with the local club Cienfuegos, winning the XLI version of the Intermunicipal Volleyball tournament in Santiago and winning the Best Libero award.

2016

Fernández was invited to play with her national team which won the gold in the World Grand Prix Group 2. Again during the Pan-American Cup played in home soil. Her team was perfect with 5-0 in the pool play defeating Cuba 3-0 in the semifinals and Puerto Rico 3-2 to win the gold medal and a berth for the 2017 FIVB World Grand Prix. Selected playing scenes with Fernández as the protagonist of a

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

video became a

viral phenomenon Viral phenomena or viral sensations are objects or patterns that are able to replicate themselves or convert other objects into copies of themselves when these objects are exposed to them. Analogous to the way in which viruses propagate, the te ...

in July 2016 erroneously posting that she was an Olympic player, but her national team did not qualify for the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events i ...

after finishing in sixth place in the World Olympic qualification tournament. After the video success, some fake

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and

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accounts started posting fake photos of her, which were denounced by her National Federation. She commented that she did not like the video with scenes taken from her participation in the 2015 U23 World Championship, and the unexpected fame resulting from that was difficult to handle. With her U23 national team, she won the U23 Pan-American Cup and the 2017 FIVB U23 World Championship qualification, being named the tournament's best digger.

2017

In September she was ranked by the Salvadoran newspaper ''El Mundo'' #7 among the 10 most beautiful and coveted athletes in the world. She replied that it was an honor and a compliment for Dominican women, but that she would like to be remembered for her playing skills. She was invited to participate in the 2017 FIVB U23 World Championship, warming up with the team in Italy against Savino Del Bene Scandicci. Fernández played the 2017 FIVB U23 World Championship in

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, Slovenia, losing by a score of 2-4 the bronze medal to Bulgaria. She played with Cienfuegos in the XLIII Intermunicipal volleyball tournament in her home province of Santiago, winning the championship and Best Libero award. She won the U23 tournament gold medal in the

Clubs

(2008) * Cienfuegos (2010–2011) *

(2012) *

(2013-2014) *

(2014-2015) * Mirador (2015) * Cienfuegos (2015–2017)

Awards

Individuals

* ''2010 NORCECA Youth Championship "Best Digger"'' * ''2010 NORCECA Youth Championship "Best Receiver"'' * ''2010 NORCECA Youth Championship "Best Libero"'' * '' 2011 Girls' Youth Pan-American Cup "Best Libero"'' * '' 2012 NORCECA Junior Championship "Most Valuable Player"'' * '' 2012 NORCECA Junior Championship "Best Digger"'' * '' 2012 NORCECA Junior Championship "Best Receiver"'' * '' 2012 NORCECA Junior Championship "Best Libero"'' * '' 2013 Junior Pan-American Cup "Best Digger"'' * '' 2013 Junior Pan-American Cup "Best Libero"'' * ''2013 Baja California International Cup "Most Valuable Player"'' * '' 2016 U23 Pan-American Cup "Best Digger"''

Clubs

– Bronze medal, with

References

External links

FIVB Profile

CEV Profile

Winifer Fernandez
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fernandez, Winifer 1995 births Living people Dominican Republic women's volleyball players Sportspeople from Santiago Province (Dominican Republic) Expatriate volleyball players in Azerbaijan Liberos Bolivarian Games gold medalists for the Dominican Republic Bolivarian Games medalists in volleyball 21st-century Dominican Republic sportswomen