Can Ostapenko duplicate her skills and talents on grass for another title?

Jelena Ostapenko came up the ranks as a junior competitor in the qualifying rounds of the 2015 French and US Open. Now she is the French Open champion.

She had a dream and a coach who won two French Opens. What more would she need?

"“Clay is not my best surface.” – Jelena Ostapenko after she had defeated her fifth opponent, Caroline Wozniacki, in this year’s French Open.More from Lob and SmashCaroline Wozniacki gets her wild card for the Australian OpenTennis News: Rafael Nadal, Emma Raducanu and protected rankingsMartina Navratilova: Money lost by coming out was in the ‘millions’Tennis News: Novak Djokovic, Nick Kyrgios and Matteo BerrettiniBoris Becker and Rick Macci bicker over Carlos Alcaraz"

She was either being modest or just a bit nervous to think she wouldn’t win the French Open title. Ostapenko started this clay court season with a new coach.

The 34-year-old Spaniard, Anabel Medina Garrigues, is still active on the WTA tour but she has stopped because of a chronic shoulder injury. Medina Garrigues won both the 2008 and 2009 French Open events, has 11 singles and nearly 30 doubles titles. She joined Ostapenko’s team to help during the clay court season. Medina Garrigues is considered a clay court specialist but professes that she likes hard court events better.

Ostapenko says that her favorite surfaces are grass and hard court and it may be because she won her first singles event as a junior at the 2014 Wimbledon Championships and was considered the number 2 junior tennis player in the world back in September of 2014. She has skills on grass just as she had not much difficulty on clay. But the following year, Ostapenko lost her opening round in the French Open and also lost the first qualifying round of the US Open in 2015.

Ostapenko may have the talents but also the tantrums when in 2016 at the second round of the ASB Classic with Naomi Broady, she lost her patience mostly with herself and threw her racquet at a ballboy. Broady wanted her disqualified but it never happened. It was the 2016 Qatar Total Open in Doha that she had control and extreme strategies to defeat Petra Kvitova. Carla Suarez Navarro defeated her though in the final but Jelena still was able to go from No. 88 to No. 41 in the world.

She was seeded in the Miami Open qualifying but lost when it came to the first round. Ostapenko can be a bundle of nerves and still has bouts of being unfocused when at last year’s French Open she was seeded in the singles draw and lost her opening match to Naomi Osaka, something that shouldn’t have happened. But, she’s just gotten out of her teens and at times still lacks maturity to be a consistent player.

This year was a blockbuster for Ostapenko. She worked her way to the semis at Auckland, going three rounds, but as she elevated into the semis playing opposite Lauren Davis, she fell ill and had to retire.

The Australian Open saw her reach the third round but she bailed out to Karolina Pliskova in three sets when she nearly had the match by serving for it in the third set. Ostapenko is prone to flip-flop moments when she becomes unsettled but it didn’t happen at this year’s French Open when she defeated Louisa Chirico, Monica Puig, Lesla Tsurenko, Samantha Stosur, Caroline Wozniacki and in the final for the title, Simona Halep.

When she is unfocused she spins off tons of unforced errors, making her skills look non-existent, but yet when she’s zoned in she’ll hit over 40 winners within the match to move her opponents all over the court, hitting corner shots and then cross-court bashing forehands.

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"Ostpenko likes the grass court surface and despite any surface says that “I always had the possibility I could hit the ball really hard… If I have a chance to go for a shot, I’m trying”."

Jelena Ostapenko’s tennis resume is looking good right now and most of her competitors know that they’ll have their hands full to be the aggressor in any match they play with her.

"She was asked how did she learn her style and she merely says, “Nobody taught me, it’s just the way I play”."

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