Feyisa made his senior breakthrough the following year, stepping up a level at the 2009 IAAF World Cross Country Championships and scoring a senior team silver medal by finishing in 12th place. That April he headed to the United States to compete in the Crescent City Classic in New Orleans. He set a 10K best of 28:20 to finish as runner-up behind Mark Kiptoo. He upped the distance by running at the Rock 'n' Roll Virginia Beach Half Marathon in September. He set a time of 1:02:15 but again he was beaten into second place by a Kenyan rival, this time in the form of William Chebor. He made his marathon debut he following month, competing at the Dublin Marathon. He took the lead from two-time winner Aleksey Sokolov and went unrivalled in his first race over the distance, beating Solokov by a margin of a minute and a half. His time of 2:09:12 was a strong debut run, although he missed the course record by five seconds.