- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko will be looking to continue her phenomenal season when she takes on veteran Venus Williams in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon. Join The Roar for live scores from around 11pm (AEST).
Ostapenko has enjoyed an incredible rise through the ranks of the WTA during 2017. Starting the year outside the top 50, she struggled during the Australian summer, but has had no such problems since.
A strong clay court season led into the French Open, where she pulled off upset after upset with her powerful forehand being the key weapon. She eventually found herself in the final of the second grand slam of the year and became the first unseeded player to win the event in the open era going past Simona Halep 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.
Ostapenko’s only grass tournament before Wimbledon was at Eastbourne as she fell to Johanna Konta in the third round, before arriving at Wimbledon with the 13th seed.
It was a struggle early on for the French Open champion as she took three sets to go past Aliaksandra Sasnovich and Francoise Abanda, but she has since dominated strong opponents Camila Giorgi and fourth seed Elina Svitolina.
Her form is undeniably good, but against Venus Williams on her favourite surface, experience may tell the picture of this quarter-final.
Williams has had a resurgence in 2017. She started the year making the Australian Open final and ever since has been strong on all surfaces, making the final stages of most tournaments she has entered.
At the French Open, she fell in three sets to Timea Bacsinszky in the fourth round, but has rebounded at Wimbledon and has only dropped one set in the first four rounds.
That came against Qiang Wang in the second, but she bounced back from a set down to take the match in dominating circumstances, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1. Her other wins have come against Elise Mertens, Naomi Osaka and the outrageously talented Ana Konjuh.
Ostapenko, with her power game will be her toughest opponent yet and we can expect to see a lot of short points played throughout the match.
The pair have never played before.
Prediction
This should be an interesting match. Williams has all the experience, but Ostapenko is on an incredible run of form and her game tends to suit the grass courts. This one will go the distance and then some.
Williams in three sets.
Be sure to join The Roar for live scores of this quarter-final from around 11pm (AEST) or at the completion of Adrian Mannarino versus Novak Djokovic and don’t forget to add a comment in the section below.