Ons Jabeur moves on with straight sets win over Jelena Ostapenko

Ons Jabeur clenches her fist during her second round match at the J&T Ostrava Open against Jelena Ostapenko Thursday.

Jelena Ostapenko couldn’t put the pieces of her game back together at the J&T Bank Ostrava Open. After such a good start in the season finale, the Latvian allowed Ons Jabeur to use her bag of tricks to win 6-4, 6-4 on center court at the Ostravar Arena. 

The two met for the first time in WTA action and with both coming up with a straight-sets win in their opening round, defeat would surely come to one. The Tunisian pull together a terrific performance against the veteran Czech who flopped with only four wins in the match. It was another strong victory in her career with many occurring this season. Facing Ostapenko was another challenge as the Latvian found her niche scoring seven times as many winners to double faults. In her victory over fifth-seeded Petra Martic and success in indoor tournaments, the former French Open champ had to keep cool. 

Jabeur opened service and held Ostapenko to a single point before locking it down. She then overcame a 30-40 moment to force deuce and gain the first AD point played that earned her the break. Down 2-0, Ostapenko made sure she broke back, getting her on the board with the hope that she could consolidate in the fourth. Double faults didn’t help in her quest, leading Jabeur to capture the double with a break to love.  

The fifth was a highly competitive game as Jabeur erred at 40-15 bringing the Latvian to deuce. They went four breaks where after two blown breakpoints, Ostapenko made three a charm. She followed it up with a serve to love in the sixth, leveling the score at three-all. Jabeur responded with a serve to love in the seventh. The 26-year-old managed to stay ahead of Ostapenko after she leveled things back in the eighth. 

A final serve to love gave the Tunisian a lot of confidence to go into the tenth with the intention of forcing her opponent into submission. Gaining three break points from the start, Jabeur lost one but clinched the opening set in 36 minutes on an error from Ostapenko. She tallied 16 in total as the 26-year-old made it difficult at times. 

Her force allowed her to control serve and notch the first game of the second set. The Latvian answered with one of her own, but the task of breaking Jabeur had its difficulty. Drop shots from the Tunisian handed her free points in the third, but an error and double fault made it 30-all. She responded with a crosscourt ace marking her fifth but erred to bring up deuce. Ostapenko let her opponent make the key mistake that gave her the break and the lead. 

The two played the next three games where errors produced breaks of serve leaving them locked at three apiece. Six breaks of serve were in the books as Jabeur leveled back in the eighth, killing Ostapenko’s chance to gain momentum on serve. A push from the 26-year-old gave her an opportunity to change the pace and run on her own terms. Jabeur pulled out all the stops to dictate points that forced Ostapenko to err. On a run to return the ball at the net, the Tunisian got the game point and lead 5-4 with a key service hold. 

The Latvian served to extend the match but her opponent was focused on every point played. The 26-year-old reached three match points but blew every one of them on drop shots and a return into the net. Despite the mistakes, she earned another chance with Ostapenko forcing an error into the net to bring up the fourth attempt. A winning return was all that Jabeur needed to give the victory in 1 hour and 24 minutes.