Ostapenko blasts back to claim stunning French title

The fearlessness may change over time as the magnitude of matches and situations increases, depending on the stage of her career, but for now, Ostapenko is hugely unsafe and though she is capable of losing in the first round, she will go to Wimbledon, where she won the junior title in 2014, with enormous confidence. “It is a nice place and the surface, grass, really fits me so I am really looking forward to playing this year”. She was, though, about to “do a Kuerten”.

“I think she handles that like a pro”.

She is the first unseeded woman to win at Roland Garros since 1933. She then had three break points to move to 4-0. “There were a couple of deciding games and the match turned in the other way”, she added. The 20-year-old Latvian finished the tournament with a total of 299 winners through seven matches in Paris – 54 of which came against Halep.

This was the classic contrast of styles, with Halep a superb mover and defender, but ultimately aggression won out. Osuigwe won the match 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-3.

A large contingent of Romanian fans was now chanting her name with confidence, but her run of six games in a row came to an end, and Ostapenko grabbed the momentum. She was playing in her second major final after being the runner-up to Maria Sharapova at Roland Garros in 2014.

After telling herself to calm down on multiple occasions, Ostapenko started finding her range in the second set.

“To play the final, it’s an awesome thing”.

“And so I will work hard to climb the rankings and to maybe win some more titles”. On one hand, you had the stable, reliable Halep who is a counter-puncher and doesn’t give away too many unforced errors. “I think I played OK”. So what if Ostapenko wound up dropping that set, then facing big deficits in the second and third?

“I have faith that eventually she’ll get over it”, he says. She stormed to the last five games, officially winning her first grand slam title by crushing a backhand return victor down the line. And also I think my character is like that.

The 20-year-old may have been unseeded going into the tournament, but her ranking will fly up afterwards from No. 47 to just outside the top 10 at No. 12.

There’s no better example to cite in this context than the statistical breakdown of Ostapenko’s shots in her 119-minute final. Hurts a lot, and I need time just to – I don’t know.

“It was always my goal to win a Grand Slam title, now I want to win them all”, she said. It was with icy composure that she negated the Ukrainian’s lead to secure a place in the semi-final, where she played out another defiant match against the second seed Karolina Pliskova.

She trailed by a set and 3-0 but launched a memorable comeback with a remarkable display of fearless shotmaking. At some point I was like a spectator on court.

The final against Halep was shown on a big screen in the centre of Riga and Ostapenko is expecting plenty of fuss when she makes a brief trip back to her home city on Monday. “I was close again but I lost it”. “Actually, it’s something I can not understand”.

In retrospect, Halep probably would have liked to have been more aggressive, but she knew going in that she would be outhit – that there would be periods when she would just watch the ball fly by, unable to do anything about it.