Kaia Kanepi (We Are Tennis – Twitter)
The former French Open winner – Jelena Ostapenko will begin her campaign in the Tallinn Open against the Estonian veteran Kaia Kanepi on Wednesday.
The 25-year-old has had a great season thus far. She won her first title this year at the Dubai Tennis Championships and made it to the finals in the Eastbourne International and the recently-concluded Korea Open. Ostapenko also reached the semi-finals in the St. Petersburg Open and the Qatar Open.
Ostapenko entered the Korea Open as the top seed and defeated the likes of Boyoung Jeong, Anastasia Gasanova, and Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva to set up a clash with Emma Raducanu in the semi-finals. The match ebbed and flowed quite nicely as the British No. 1 looked a step ahead of her opponent. However, an injury forced Raducanu to retire when Ostapenko was leading 4-6, 6-3, 3-0. In the final, Ostapenko faced second seed, Ekaterina Alexandrova. The Russian star won the match in straight sets 7-6 (7-4), 6-0.
It’s been a year of hits and misses for the 37-year-old. She started strongly and reached the Australian Open quarterfinal. She made it to the semifinal at a WTA 125 event in Paris. Kanepi came very close to ending her 9-year title drought as she made it to the Citi Open final. However, she couldn’t finish the match after winning the first set as Liudmila Samsonova made a scintillating comeback to win 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.
The home favorite will have to bring her A-game when she steps onto the court against a confident Jelena Ostapenko. We can expect a thrilling contest.
Jelena Ostapenko has a 1-0 lead over Kaia Kanepi in the head-to-head scoreline. The former won their previous encounter at the 2018 Eastbourne International in straight sets.
Prediction: Jelena Ostapenko to win in three sets.
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