Carla Suarez Navarro has had a magnificent year so far. She was a finalist in top-tier WTA events in Miami and Rome and was also a finalist in Antwerp. However, she could cross today off her list of things she’d like to remember from this year. Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia caused the first major shock (though to some it would not be), of the tournament with an absolutely dominating 6-2, 6-0 victory over the ninth-seeded Spaniard.
The Spaniard came in as a favorite because of her fantastic season to date, and the fact that Ostapenko came in as a relative unknown to some, if not, a majority of the tennis fans. Despite the fact she may be a relative unknown to many tennis fans, the Latvian was the Wimbledon junior champion here last year and was the second ranked junior through last September. A former junior Wimbledon champion against a player who plays her best on hard courts, but especially clay courts, a formula for a blowout.
The Spaniard only held once in the whole match and that was in the opening set and earned her second and last game on a break. Besides those two games, it was pure domination from the Latvian. She won 12 of her 13 first serve points and broke the Spaniard three times. Also in that opening set, she won 20 points on the ninth seed’s serve, absolutely lethal.
The second set was even more of a blowout as the Spaniard would be eating a “bagel” by the end of it. The Latvian smacked 13 more winners than Suarez Navarro, which meant she hit 13 since the Spaniard did not hit a single winner at all in that second set. Similarly to the first set, Ostapenko won all but one of her first serve points and won double the return points compared to the nine seed.
The reason for the Spaniard’s struggle on grass is that since it’s so fast and low bouncing, she has less time to set up her groundstrokes. The low bounce means that she is taking the ball outside of her strike zone so she needs to adjust to get the ball to hit the sweet spot. With the victory Ostapenko moves into the second round against Kristina Mladenovic who defeated Alexandra Dulgheru 6-2, 6-1.