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For either the unseeded Jelena Ostapenko or 30th seed Timea Bacsinszky, a French Open final and the biggest match of their career awaits. Join The Roar for live scores of the first women’s semi-final from 11pm (AEST).
In a wide open women’s draw, even this match-up in the semi’s is a surprise. Only one seeded player has made it out of the top half of the draw, and a bottom seed at that.
It’s quite incredible, and for both of these up and coming stars, it’s the biggest match of their life – until the final for the winner.
Both have had to pull off some huge upsets to reach this stage of the tournament, but it would be fair to say it didn’t nearly get as difficult as it could have, with seeds being knocked out left, right and centre.
Ostapenko was on the upset bandwagon from the second round though, defeating Rio Olympics gold medalist Monica Puig in straight sets.
That came after she had already recovered from a set down in the first round, defeating Louisa Chirico, while she lived up to expectations with a straight set demolition job of Lesya Tsurenko in the third round.
It’s been far from easy over the last two rounds though. She had to recover from a set down against the powerful Australian Samantha Stosur, before doing the same against 11th seed Caroline Wozniacki in the last round.
Ostapenko’s power game was on display against Wozniacki, and she blasted were past, winning the final two sets to the tune of 6-2, 6-2.
Bacsinszky, on the other hand had a pretty straight forward run through the first three rounds, not dropping a set and allowing her 30th seed to hand a pretty easy draw down.
On paper, the toughest match should have come against Madison Brengle, but she served to love in the first set and dropped just two games in the second. In fact, including all of her first three rounds – the other matches against Sara Sorribes Tormo and Ons Jabeur, she dropped just nine games across her first six sets of the tournament.
She then lost her only set of the tournament against Venus Williams in the fourth round, having to bounce back from a 5-7 first set, before turning it on again to win 6-2, 6-1.
An impressive 6-4, 6-4 victory over Kristina Mladenovic followed, and it’s the way she has been able to combat opposition player’s serve that’s been her strongest point.
If Ostapenko lets nerves get to her and serves at a low percentage, she will get blown off the court.
The pair have never played before this meeting, and the winner will face either Karolina Pliskova or Simona Halep in the final on Saturday.
Prediction
Ostapenko might crack here. She hasn’t shown any signs of it, but if Bacsinszky wins the first set, she will take it.
Bacsinszky in three sets.
Be sure to join The Roar for live scores of the first semi-final at the French Open from 11pm (AEST) and don’t forget to add a comment in the section below.