Jelena Ostapenko produced her best tennis in patches to overcome the challenge of Elina Svitolina 7-6 7-6 and reach her second Premier Mandatory semi-final at the Miami Open.
After her breakthrough year in 2017, this is the first time in 2018 that the Latvian has reached the last four of an event. She will face either Venus Williams or Danielle Collins.
For much of the quarter-final, it was attack against defence as Ostapenko, 20, unleashed a torrent of her trademark huge groundstrokes. However, while she hit 44 winners, she made almost as many errors (42) as Svitolina sought to make her play extra shots.
It was also a match dominated by the excellent returning abilities of both players as it featured a remarkable twelve breaks over the course of the two sets.
A Rollercoaster First Set
Initially, Ostapenko managed to hang onto her serve more frequently than Svitolina to move into a 4-3 lead, which she extended to 5-3 with another hold.
After Svitolina then held for 4-5, she summoned her coach in a bid to save the set but looked miserable as he told her to take the ball earlier and go for her shots more.
But as it turned out, all the Ukrainian had to do to level the score was get the ball back in play as Ostapenko made four unforced errors to effectively break herself to love. Svitolina then became more fluent on her serve and held easily to lead for the first time in the match.
Game twelve summed up the talented Latvian as she hit four big winners and made two wild errors. And while everything is fine when the ratio is like that as she wins more games than she loses, she is always liable to make more errors than winners and that is when she gets into trouble.
Ostapenko started the tie-break in style with a deft volley and a brutal backhand. Svitolina battled back to lead 3-2 but the Latvian hit a backhand winner down the line and then produced a delightful backhand-forehand combination to tip the score in her favour.
Then she took control, drilling a deep forehand that Svitolina could not return before coming up with two more winners to earn three set points. She only needed one, as she smacked down a powerful serve that the Ukrainian could only deflect towards the stands.
Momentum Swings One Way Then The Other
Ostapenko made a sloppy start to the second set on serve and, when she hit a forehand long to gift Svitolina a break point, the Ukrainian ensured she took advantage by hammering a forehand winner down the line.
The World No.4 struggled to find her serving rhythm but dealt with the pressure well by hitting two forehand winners when the score was 30-all to go 2-0 up.
For the first time in the match, a predictable pattern emerged in the next three games as both players held easily to move the score on to 3-2 in Svitolina’s favour.
However, chaos soon returned as Ostapenko wasted one break point before taking a second with an emphatic cross-court backhand winner to level the set. She then handed the advantage straight back to her Ukrainian opponent by making three errors on serve.
At 2-3 in the first set, Svitolina had called for the doctor and taken a tablet of some kind. Now at 4-3 up in the second set, she told her coach Andrew Bettles that her stomach was really hurting, and her discomfort was clear in game eight as she made two uncharacteristically loose errors to gift the Latvian the break back.
Despite her pain, the Ukrainian fought hard on Ostapenko’s serve to try and restore her advantage. However, the Latvian held firm to earn a chance to break for the match.
Svitolina was having none of it and stayed resolute on her serve to make it 5-5. And she dialled up her aggression to hit two winners en route to a break in the next game.
Ostapenko Wrestles Back Control
Ostapenko responded by summoning her coach David Taylor. And the pep talk worked as she hit a couple of winners and, crucially, only one error as she broke to force a second set tie-break.
As in the first set, the tie-break situation suited the Latvian as she hit two winners and forced two errors to open up a 4-1 lead. Svitolina fought her way back to 6-5 with the help of an error and some good hustling, but Ostapenko still had one match point left.
She took it with two superb backhands in succession. The first forced the Ukrainian to block it back and then the Latvian drilled the second behind Svitolina as she moved to cover the other side of the court.
“It was an incredibly tough match today and I’m really happy with the way I played,” Ostapenko said in her on-court interview. “(My coach) came on court and told me to be really aggressive. It doesn’t matter if you miss sometimes because if you are aggressive you will win the match.”
She continued, “It was 6-3 in the (second set) tie-break and then it was 6-5. I don’t know what was going through my mind; I just really pushed the second serve and hit another winner. I’m really happy with the way it finished.”
