Of all the surprises in 2017, perhaps Jelena Ostapenko’s audacious charge to the French Open title was the most unexpected feat of all. Rated a 100-1 outsider pre-tournament, yet to win a tour event and contesting just her eighth major, the Latvian recovered from a 6-4 3-0 deficit in the final against Simona Halep to victory, two days after her 20th birthday.
The youngest major champion since Maria Sharapova in 2006 - and the first in her nation’s history - smacked 54 clean winners past the stunned third seed with a high-risk game that delivered stunning rewards. Much of Ostapenko’s Air Baltic flight home to Riga was spent enjoying the view from the cockpit, which was fitting, for someone who had come from the clouds.
Fearless does not quite describe her free-swinging approach in that Roland Garros decider, sealed with a backhand return winner down the line on match point. “It was a great tournament for me. I was always an aggressive player and trying to hit the ball hard if I have a chance, and I think there, especially the court and everything, it fitted me,’’ she said as her breakthrough season ended in Singapore.
By then, Ostapenko had watched the final in Paris several times - as you would. And the verdict? “I was thinking ‘oh my God, I played pretty good!’’’
Impressive, too, have been the months since, considering how many first-time major winners suffer an immediate let-down in the next. In contrast, Ostapenko reached the Wimbledon quarter-final (beating Elina Svitolina before losing to Venus Williams) and finished 2017 having reached at least the third round at all four slams, having never previously passed round two.
There was also a second title, albeit a smaller one: the Korea Open in Seoul in September. Semis in both Beijing and Wuhan followed, and although Ostapenko failed to progress past the round-robin stage on her WTA Finals debut, a victory over Karolina Pliskova meant that the season finished on a winning note.
With the appointment to the Spanish Fed Cup captaincy of coach Anabel Medina Garrigues, who had worked since the clay-court season in tandem with Ostapenko’s mother, Jelena Jakovleva, came another interesting development: the 15-week-a-year hiring of experienced Australian coach David Taylor.
The serve, clearly, will be a priority for the man who guided Sam Stosur to a US Open triumph and has also worked with the likes of Ana Ivanovic, Alicia Molik, Ajla Tomljanovic and Naomi Osaka. Ostapenko’s double-fault count (380) was the highest on the WTA tour by some distance last season, although the damage was mitigated slightly by her top-two ranking, behind only Sara Errani, for percentage of return games won (46.4).
The fact she pipped Caroline Wozniacki for the most three-set wins this season - 19 - is evidence of the fighting qualities Ostapenko rates as her greatest asset. Nor was the feisty personality, criticised for her limp look-away handshake with Daria Kasatkina at the US Open, afraid to call out Camilla Giorgi’s father for what she claimed was “unsportsmanlike” behaviour from the players’ box at the All England Club.
Along with her serve, consistency was to be another off-season focus for the fierce ball-striker who thinks she was “born powerful”, won the 2014 Wimbledon junior crown and favours the high-energy Samba when pursuing her other passion: Latin ballroom dance.
There is a little more pressure now that opponents know and prepare for her game more throughly, she admits, although the increased attention seems not to bother Ostapenko at all. And while many wonder if the French Open was a one-off, the world No.7’s stated ambition is to win all four.
Exclusive company, certainly. Then again, her excellent Roland Garros adventure on a surface not considered her best already qualifies 'Alona' Ostapenko for membership of a Grand Slam club few imagined she was ready to join.