Ostapenko a sudden star; Halep also in French final
PARIS — Jelena Ostapenko is a young woman in a hurry, and that includes on the tennis court.
On the day she turned 20, Ostapenko became the first unseeded French Open finalist since 1983, using big and bold groundstrokes to end points lickety-split on the way to beating 30th-seeded Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland 7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-3 on Thursday.
“Her life is like this: Everything very fast,” said Anabel Medina Garrigues, Ostapenko’s coach and a former pro. “Hit fast. Walk fast. Talk fast.”
It’s true. How quickly did this come together for Ostapenko, the first tennis player from Latvia to reach a Grand Slam final?
This is just her eighth major tournament, she had never been past so much as the third round at a major before this week, she lost her opening match in Paris a year ago and she has yet to win a tour-level title of any sort.
“I mean, when I came here,” Ostapenko said Thursday, her words spilling out with nary a pause in between, “of course I didn’t expect I would be in the final.”
In Saturday’s championship match, the 47th-ranked Ostapenko will face Romania’s Simona Halep, who got past 2016 U.S. Open runner-up Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in the second compelling women’s semifinal on a sunny day at Roland Garros.
While Ostapenko is assured of making her debut in the top 20 rankings next week thanks to her surprising showing at the French Open, there is more at stake for the No. 3-seeded Halep: In addition to a chance for her first
Grand Slam title, a victory would allow the 25-year-old to seize the top ranking for the first time, too.
This is the second major final for Halep, the runner-up to Maria Sharapova in the 2014 French Open.
“I hope this time I can play better,” Halep said, “and I can win it.”
There will be quite a contrast in styles Saturday at Court Philippe Chatrier.
The 5-foot-6 Halep is a ball-chasing, defensive dynamo unafraid of lengthy exchanges who gets to nearly everything off an opponent’s racket and is careful when she swings. She made 14 unforced errors against the No. 2-seeded Pliskova, whose
total was 55.
The 5-10 Ostapenko, meanwhile, is aggressive as can be, a go-for-the-lines-and-hit-them tour de force who likes to keep points as snappy as her answers to reporters’ questions.
“She is young and reckless, in a sense. She’s not afraid of anything. She’s a big hitter,” said Bacsinszky, a friend of Ostapenko’s and a doubles partner last year. “She’s a baby, but she’s a beautiful baby.”
One who hits the ball as if she’s angry at it.
Bacsinszky, who turned 28 on Thursday, employed all manner of strategies in a bid to throw off her opponent. She tried staying in points until Ostapenko made
a mistake. She tried mixing speeds and angles and target spots. She tried hitting shorter to draw Ostapenko forward. She tried hitting deeper.
None of it worked well enough to win, although the match was still extremely close: Ostapenko won 106 points, Bacsinszky 105.
Men’s semis today
Rafael Nadal arrived at the French Open having won 17 of 18 matches on clay this season. He also happens to be a nine-time champion at Roland Garros.
His opponent in today’s semifinals, Dominic Thiem, entered the year’s second Grand Slam tournament with some success on the surface, too, reaching a pair of finals and handing Nadal that lone loss.
Stan Wawrinka, the 2015 champion and another semifinalist this year, was coming off a clay title at the Geneva Open the week before play began in Paris.
And what about Andy Murray, who meets Wawrinka today in a rematch of the 2016 French Open semifinals?
“I came in playing garbage,” Murray said with a smile. “You know, I’m the odd one out in the semis.”
It’s true. In his last clay tuneup before arriving in Paris, Murray lost his first match at the Italian Open. Before that, he bowed out in the third round at both Monte Carlo and Madrid. Take it back further and add in hard courts: Murray was only 16-7 all season before the French Open.
Hardly the sort of record befitting someone ranked No. 1 thanks to quite a string of successes a year ago, including a Wimbledon championship, an unprecedented second consecutive Olympic gold medal and runner-up finishes at the Australian Open and French Open.
And while Murray has been playing better and better over the past two weeks, shaking off a cold and finding his form, he has not been quite as good as the trio of others still around. Murray has dropped a total of three sets through five matches in the tourney; Wawrinka, Nadal and Thiem have won every set they’ve played so far.
“They are all obviously playing extremely well,” Murray said. “Rafa’s had a great clay-court season, as has Thiem. Stan, this tournament, has played great. Won in Geneva, so is obviously confident.”