Jelena Ostapenko’s surprising win at the French Open reminded me of Wilander, Becker, Chang, Kuerten, Graf, Seles and Hingis when they captured their first big titles.
PARIS – 20-year-old Jelena Ostapenko is the new French Open Queen after upsetting Simona Halep in a see-saw final match. Halep – who was brave and also quite fortunate to get out of jail against Svitolina in the quarterfinals when she incredibly came back from 3-6, 1-5 – was actually very unlucky during Saturday’s final. The net cord that Ostapenko hit when breaking the Romanian at 3-3 in the final set was one of the most bizarre shots of the entire tournament. Ostapenko hit a backhand down-the-line that was destined to go out by a good margin and the net cord not only kept the ball inside the court, but it made impossible for Halep to retrieve the shot. At that point, it was clear that stars had aligned for the young Latvian.
The match didn’t start in the best way for Ostapenko. Halep sprinted to a 6-4,3-0 lead, with three more break points to go up 4-0. Ostapenko boldly saved two of them with brilliant forehand winners, then Halep made a crucial backhand error on the third one. If the Romanian ever watches the footages of Saturday’s final, that particular backhand will probably be the shot that she will regret the most.
Jelena’s mother joked about how she didn’t cry after her daughter won the biggest title of her young career: “It was because of the sun,” she said. She also added that her husband Yeygeny was celebrating their daughter’s victory with their friends back home in Riga. “It was about ten years ago that I realized that Jelena had the potential to win a big tournament. She always had something special and hit the ball really hard.” Jelena’s successful junior career certainly reinforced her mother’s opinion.
“She loves shopping and buying the most famous brands, such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, Dolce Gabbana, and Abercrombie… but with moderation,” Ostapenko’s mother said when talking about her daughter.
Jelena’s father Yevgeny is from Ukraine and was a goalkeeper in one of the most successful teams of the Ukrainian league, Metalurg Zaporezhya. Today he works as an engineer in the wind power industry and rarely attends his daughter’s matches. Jelena’s mother confirmed that he has never been obsessed with his daughter’s tennis career, which could possibly be one of the keys of Ostapenko’s success. We witnessed hundreds of stories with parents that destroyed their kids’ careers by putting too much pressure on them.
Ostapenko was able to break down Simona Halep’s defense despite 54 unforced errors that the Latvian committed because of her inexperience. If she can clean up the errors and get physically stronger, she will have a good opportunity to become one of the best players in the world. Thanks to her French Open title, her ranking will jump to No. 12 in the world, but she will still have a long way to go. Last year Garbine Muguruza won at Roland Garros, but then she didn’t make the progress that many had predicted.
Jelena’s manager Ugo Colombini said that the Latvian has a lot of work to do if she wants to become a better athlete. He also mentioned how Jelena is not an easy player to deal with: “Medina Garrigues wanted to advise her on how to play Halep and Jelena said that she already knew what she needed to do: Hit the ball hard and inside the line.”
Ostapenko is not the first player to either win a big title or achieve surprising results in the very early stages of her young career: John McEnroe reached the Wimbledon semifinals at 20 years of age in 1977, Mats Wilander won at Roland Garros in 1982 when he was 17 years and 10 months old, Boris Becker won Wimbledon at 17 in 1985, Michael Chang and Arantxa Sanchez both won at Roland Garros at 17 in 1989, Steffi Graf, Gabriela Sabatini, Monica Seles, Jennifer Capriati, Justine Henin and Martina Hingis were all child prodigies.
It is too early to say if Ostapenko will become a great champion like the above-mentioned players, but I have the feeling that on Saturday we were part of quite an extraordinary occasion. I had the same feeling on June 8, 1997 – the day when Jelena Ostapenko was born and, believe it or not, Guga Kuerten unexpectedly won his first of three French Open titles.
(Article translation provided by T&L Global – Translation & Language Solutions – www.t-lglobal.com )
