The first Latvian women’s tennis racket Alona Ostapenko The Ostrava “Open” tournament will start with the first round meeting with the fifth racket of the tournament, Croatian Petru Martich.
Ostapenko is ranked 44th in the WTA rank and will participate in the tournament as a special invitation recipient, but Martich is ranked 18th.
The two tennis players have met twice before, and both times the Croatian tennis player has won. In the sixteenth final of the 2018 Indian Wells tournament, Ostapenko lost with 3-6, 3-6, but in the quarterfinals of the 2019 Birmingham tournament, the Latvian tennis player lost with 7-6 (7: 4), 5-7, 1-6.
The Ostapenko tournament will be the fourth after the season has resumed. After the loss in the first round of the WTA “Premier 5” tournament in Rome, Magda Linete from Poland (WTA 35) with 4-6, 3-6 Latvia’s first racket reached the quarterfinals of the WTA “International” series tournament in Strasbourg, where, fighting her abdominal pain, with 6 -7 (2: 7), 6-7 (4: 7) lost to Japanese Nao Hibino, who is ranked 84th.
Then, in the French Open, Ostapenko made it to the eighth final, where he lost 4-6, 3-6 to Spaniard Paula Badosa Hiberta (WTA 87).
In the first round, the Latvian tennis player defeated the American Madison Brengl (WTA 77) in the first round game, 6-2, and in the second round, the Czech tennis player Karolina Plīškovs (WTA 2nd) with the 6-4, 6-2 round.
In all three tournaments, Ostapenko also played doubles with Canadian Gabriel Dabrovsky. In Rome they lost in the eighth final, in Strasbourg they reached the semi-finals, but the “French Open” Latvian / Canadian duo stopped in the eighth final.
Ostapenko’s balance in this season’s WTA tournaments is 7-6.
Meanwhile, Martiča has accumulated a balance of 14-10 this season. She lost in the Australian Open in the second round, but reached the semi-finals twice in the rest of the season – first in the Dubai “Premier” series tournament, where she lost to Kazakh athlete Jelena Ribakin (WTA 19) with 6-7 (5: 7), 6-7 (2 : 7), but then also in the “Open” competition of the “International” series in Palermo, where in the semi-finals with 2-6, 4-6 the superiority of Estonian Anete Kontaveita (WTA 20) was acknowledged.
Martiča did not advance to the second round of the International Open and the Rome Open, but she reached the eighth final of the US Open, conceding 3-6, 6-2, 4-6 to another Kazakh athlete Julia Putinceva (WTA 35th). , but “French Open” – the sixtieth final, there with 7-6 (5: 7), 3: 6, 0: 6 loss to German Laura Siegemunde (WTA 66).
In the second round, the winner of this match is the Czech tennis player Barbora Stricova (WTA 37) or the Tunisian Onsa Žaber (WTA 32).
Meanwhile, Sevastova, who ranks 54th in the WTA rating, will not participate in the tournament.
The Ostrava Open tournament takes place on a hard surface.
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