Ostapenko blazes past Bacsinszky in battle of birthday girls to reach final

Ripping a screaming forehand straight through the tennis textbook, Latvian Jelena Ostapenko blazed into the French Open final with a 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-3 win over Swiss Timea Bacsinszky in a battle of the birthday girls on Thursday.

On the day she turned 20 the free-swinging world number 47 launched a fusillade of 50 winners to become the first unseeded player to reach the women’s singles final at Roland Garros since Mima Jausovec lost to Chris Evert in 1983.

But seven-times French Open champion Evert, in Paris commentating for broadcaster Eurosport, would not have recognised the brand of tennis served up by Ostapenko.

Mixed in with her scintillating winners, including forehands faster than anything men’s world number one Andy Murray has managed here so far, were 45 unforced errors, some of which could have been included in a video nasty.

At times during a match of 16 service breaks the impetuosity of youth betrayed her as she seemed on the verge of youthful tantrums in the hot Court Philippe Chatrier sunshine, especially when she lost four games in a row to lose the second set.

Thirty first seed Bacsinszky, who needed a bandage applied to her right thigh midway through the first set, looked the more likely winner at that point as she sought to celebrate her 28th birthday by surpassing her semifinal run of 2015.

Logic suggested the steady approach she adopted after losing the first-set tiebreak would get the job done for the experienced Swiss, not the whiteknuckle rollercoaster tennis Ostapenko was playing.

But Ostapenko played fearlessly in the decider and roared home from 3-3, swishing away a forehand to finish an absorbing contest and become the first Latvian to reach a major final.

She faces either Simona Halep or Karolina Pliskova in Saturday’s final. Halep and Pliskova were one set all at 7-6, 3-6 in the other semifinal at the time of going to the press.