Tennis: Ostapenko and Halep in a dance with destiny at French Open
PARIS— If things had gone a little differently, Jelena Ostapenko might be taking part in a ballroom dancing competition somewhere back home in Latvia on Saturday, instead of playing against Simona Halep in the French Open final.
As a child, Ostapenko juggled her two hobbies, dancing and tennis, until picking one at 12.
Given her weekend plans, it seems as if she might have made the right choice.
Ostapenko, the first tennis player from Latvia to reach a Grand Slam final, still enjoys dancing — “My favourite one is samba,” she said earnestly the other day — and practises four times a week. She thinks it lends itself to efficient on-court footwork “because you need to be very co-ordinated, and those small steps are helping.”
When her coach, Anabel Medina Garrigues, visited Ostapenko in Riga, she went to watch a dance lesson.
“It’s something that, for her, makes her feel better. Something she enjoys,” Medina Garrigues said. “Why not keep going?”
That basically sums up Ostapenko’s approach to tennis, too. And to life. That carefree attitude is evident in the way she takes high-risk, highreward shots, regardless of the setting or circumstance or score, and in the way she’ll laugh at her own answers during news conferences.
“She is smiling all the time,” Medina Garrigues said. “She’s young.”
That she is, especially compared with others at the top of tennis lately. Ostapenko is the youngest finalist at any major since 2009; she turned 20 on Thursday, when she won her semifinal.
While Ostapenko is ranked only 47th and is the first unseeded finalist at Roland Garros since 1983, Halep will move up to No. 1 for the first time if she wins Saturday. Plus Halep, who is 25, is not completely new to this sort of stage. She was the runner-up to Maria Sharapova in Paris three years ago, and has been a Grand Slam semifinalist three other times. At lesser events, she has won 15 titles.
“Today, I just try to relax. Of course I’m nervous, but it’s nice feeling,” Halep said Friday, when she spent some time in the stands at Court Philippe Chatrier, watching Andy Murray face Stan Wawrinka.
Looking ahead to Saturday, Halep said: “Of course, this match is really important, and I will not hide the heaviness that it has.”
As for who might win, Halep’s semifinal opponent, second-seeded Karolina Pliskova, has some thoughts.
“No doubt that Ostapenko, she’s having a good run here, and she’s dangerous,” said Pliskova, the runner-up at last year’s U.S. Open. “But I would bet everything (that) I have on Simona.”