Ostapenko breaks out happy dance
Latvian teen enjoying ride to semifinals
Unseeded Latvian teenager Jelena Ostapenko danced her way into her first Grand Slam tournament semifinal on a raindrenched Tuesday in the French Open.
As it turns out, it’s entirely possible 47th-ranked Ostapenko’s fancy footwork and finessed shotmaking could be a derived benefit from dance floor practice. Ostapenko pursued seven years of formal training in ballroom dancing.
“Yeah, of course, I think it helped me,” she said of dancing. “And I’m still doing it now just for myself, the dancing. My favorite one is samba.”
Racking in the style points, Ostapenko’s 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory against 11th seed Caroline Wozniacki wasn’t quite the upset it might appear to be on paper. They have played four times — three times on clay this season and once on hard courts last year — and the 19-year-old has never been on the losing end.
“Her shots are hard to read, so you don’t really feel comfortable at any point in the match,” Wozniacki said of Ostapenko. “She doesn’t go for the big targets. She goes for the lines.”
Ostapenko appears to have the market cornered when it comes to adding up the winners she has posted against Wozniacki. This year, in Charleston, she hit 40 winners in their match, and in Prague, she posted 70. Tuesday, Ostapenko scored big with 38 winners to six for Wozniacki.
“Every match we played was a very tough match, because she’s playing really well and she’s very consistent,” Ostapenko said. “In my mind, every time I go on court to play against her, I just know that I have to stay aggressive but to not go for every shot, because I have to be consistent as well.”
Ostapenko’s arrival in the French Open semifinals makes for a major Latvian achievement. No other Latvian woman has progressed to a Grand Slam semifinal in the Open era.
She is not, however, the first Latvian player to reach a career Grand Slam semifinal; the wildly talented but undisciplined Ernests Gulbis turned in a semifinal performance at Roland Garros in 2014.
Ostapenko, who favors grass courts and was the 2014 Wimbledon junior girls champion, was the only unseeded woman remaining into the quarterfinals.
Her dossier boasts three career WTA final appearances: this year in Charleston, last year in Doha and in 2015 in Quebec City. But she has yet to nail down a WTAlevel title.
Before she can defy the odds to win her first career title at the French Open of all places, there’s much work to be done. First, there’s a semifinal outing to play Thursday, which is her 20th birthday.
“I have to take one step at a time,” she said, when asked if she was contemplating a possible first title here. “I’m still in the semifinal, and it’s going to be a hard match.
“So I just have to go out there and just do my best.”
In their first meeting, Ostapen- ko will face often-intimidating 30th seed Timea Bacsinszky, who, in an intriguing twist of fate, will also be celebrating a birthday — her 28th — Thursday. Switzerland’s Bacsinszky ousted crowd favorite and 13th seed Kristina Mladenovic of France 6-4, 6-4 to reach her second French Open semifinal in the last three years.
If there’s one thing we can count on regarding Thursday’s semifinal, it’s that one of these women will receive the ultimate birthday present in safe passage into a first Grand Slam final.