TWELVE months ago, Jelena Ostapenko made her first trip to the French Open main draw and was beaten in the first round.
One year on, the 20-year-old whose blistering groundstrokes have drawn gasps of wonder from the crowd, is into a first grand slam final after a 7-6, 3-6, 6-3 win over Timea Bacsinszky and she has a live chance of winning it.
Ostapenko, ranked 47 but headed inside the top 20 regardless of what happens tomorrow, will play Simona Halep for the title, the Romanian third seed who reached the final here in 2014.
On that occasion, pressure and Maria Sharapova denied Halep a first grand slam but yesterday she coped well with the big-hitting game of second seed Karolina Pliskova as she recorded a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win.
“It's a great feeling. What can I say?” Halep said. “It's nice. I feel different, anyway. I feel like I have more experience. I'm of course happy, but I'm not that excited. I'm looking forward, actually, to playing it. I'm okay. I'm feeling good.
“Today was a great battle there, big battle. Every point was very important. I felt like that on court, and I felt that I have to run for every ball. I have to be focused for every ball. So good that I could do that in the third set for every single ball. So I'm happy with my performance.”
If Halep’s place in the final was not a surprise, the performances this week of Ostapenko definitely have been.
Three years on from winning the junior Wimbledon title, Ostapenko had never made it past the third round in any grand slam and only even made the main draw here once.
But wins over former US Open champion Sam Stosur, former world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki and yesterday, the 2015 semi-finalist, Bacsinszky, have taken her into a first final and there is no question she deserved it.
Against Bacsinszky, whose drop shots, movement and clay-court nous were expected to break her down, Ostapenko slammed 50 winners, never letting up even when she experienced some tight moments.
Having taken the first set on the tie-break, 7-4, Ostapenko began to miss as Bacsinszky threw in all sorts of junk in an effort to unsettle her.
She took the second set but Ostapenko gathered herself to break early in the third and though she was pegged back to 3-3, she kept going for her shots in the same fearless style and it worked as she won a gruelling two-hour, 24-minute battle.
“She was playing great in the first set,” Ostapenko said. “She was changing the rhythm also, playing aggressive sometimes, making drop shots. I was just trying to stay aggressive and to go for a shot when I could. I think it was kind of important that I won the first set, even though I lost the second, but in the third set I found my game again.”
Victory for Halep in the final would give her the world No.1 ranking for the first time in her career but Ostapenko just seems like an unstoppable force.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here