Roland Garros: Where Are They Now? Jelena Ostapenko is Back With Hope but High Hurdles
Jelena Ostapenko is returning to the French Open after wining the title in her debut year and then being knocked out in the first round last year.
Jelena Ostapenko won the 2017 French Open (Photo Credit: Reuters)
Loading...
Paris: When Jelena Ostapenko cracked a backhand down the line to win the French Open in 2017, it flew with a sound that seemed to herald a new star in women's sport.
For two glorious weeks the grinning youngster had swung her lime green racket with abandon, her plaited ponytail swinging side-to-side as she ousted increasingly impressive challengers day-by-day.
Initially, there had been nothing to suggest she would go deep at Roland Garros, much less shake up the world of women's tennis. Certainly not in her first match when she laboured past a little-known American in three unremarkable sets.
But Ostapenko grew in stature by the round. By the middle of the tournament she had beaten a Grand Slam champion, Sam Stosur, and in the quarter-finals she biffed a player who had once been world number one, Caroline Wozniacki.
In the final, she threw caution to a warm wind and walloped an incredible 54 clean winners - a figure which matched precisely her error count - to beat Simona Halep and become the first unseeded player to win the French title since 1933.
It was Ostapenko's first title of any kind, emulating the feat of Gustavo Kuerten - the Brazilian who won his first Tour crown at Roland Garros on June 8, 1997 ... the very day Ostapenko was born.
That sunny fortnight was the stuff of dreams and, it appeared at the time, foundations. Here was a talent which had been crowned in a match which would surely be a precursor to further triumphs and titles. A bright future was her destiny.
It hasn't turned out that way.
The following season Ostapenko won just 23 matches all year - she reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon but lost in the first round in the defence of her French crown and her ranking dropped from a peak of fifth to 22nd in the world.
This year she has won just eight singles matches coming into Roland Garros, and two of those were in the arguably less cut-throat Fed Cup competition. She arrives in the French capital ranked 40th in the world. Unseeded, unfancied.
But the shots which powered her to the title two short years ago are still in the armoury, and all it would take is for something to click, some French flame to reignite, and she could go on a run.
"After winning a Grand Slam, everyone thinks that you will win all the tournaments and that's not like this," she said rather dolefully in a recent interview.
She also, however, allowed a glimpse of what could be.
"When I get confidence back, I am a dangerous player," she said, before describing her game. "It's aggressive, of course, a hard game. The most important thing is that everything depends on me. If I play well, I can beat almost anyone."
(Get detailed and live results of each and every seat in the Lok Sabha elections and state Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim to know which candidate/party is leading or trailing and to know who has won and who has lost and by what margin. Our one-of-its-kind Election Analytics Centre lets you don a psephologist’s hat and turn into an election expert. Know interesting facts and trivia about the elections and see our informative graphics. Elections = News18)
For two glorious weeks the grinning youngster had swung her lime green racket with abandon, her plaited ponytail swinging side-to-side as she ousted increasingly impressive challengers day-by-day.
Initially, there had been nothing to suggest she would go deep at Roland Garros, much less shake up the world of women's tennis. Certainly not in her first match when she laboured past a little-known American in three unremarkable sets.
But Ostapenko grew in stature by the round. By the middle of the tournament she had beaten a Grand Slam champion, Sam Stosur, and in the quarter-finals she biffed a player who had once been world number one, Caroline Wozniacki.
In the final, she threw caution to a warm wind and walloped an incredible 54 clean winners - a figure which matched precisely her error count - to beat Simona Halep and become the first unseeded player to win the French title since 1933.
It was Ostapenko's first title of any kind, emulating the feat of Gustavo Kuerten - the Brazilian who won his first Tour crown at Roland Garros on June 8, 1997 ... the very day Ostapenko was born.
That sunny fortnight was the stuff of dreams and, it appeared at the time, foundations. Here was a talent which had been crowned in a match which would surely be a precursor to further triumphs and titles. A bright future was her destiny.
It hasn't turned out that way.
The following season Ostapenko won just 23 matches all year - she reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon but lost in the first round in the defence of her French crown and her ranking dropped from a peak of fifth to 22nd in the world.
This year she has won just eight singles matches coming into Roland Garros, and two of those were in the arguably less cut-throat Fed Cup competition. She arrives in the French capital ranked 40th in the world. Unseeded, unfancied.
But the shots which powered her to the title two short years ago are still in the armoury, and all it would take is for something to click, some French flame to reignite, and she could go on a run.
"After winning a Grand Slam, everyone thinks that you will win all the tournaments and that's not like this," she said rather dolefully in a recent interview.
She also, however, allowed a glimpse of what could be.
"When I get confidence back, I am a dangerous player," she said, before describing her game. "It's aggressive, of course, a hard game. The most important thing is that everything depends on me. If I play well, I can beat almost anyone."
(Get detailed and live results of each and every seat in the Lok Sabha elections and state Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim to know which candidate/party is leading or trailing and to know who has won and who has lost and by what margin. Our one-of-its-kind Election Analytics Centre lets you don a psephologist’s hat and turn into an election expert. Know interesting facts and trivia about the elections and see our informative graphics. Elections = News18)