Confidence increasing
In the first semifinal of the WTA event in Luxembourg, Russian Anna Blinkova will meet Jelena Ostapenko from Latvia. Both women are playing some great tennis at the moment and especially the Latvian is finally getting back on track. In 2017, Ostapenko shocked the world by winning the French Open on what was one of the most miraculous runs in tennis history. Afterwards, most of her performances have been a negative shock and she wasn't able to establish herself amongst the elite players. Serve and point construction have been a major issue for her in what feels like forever.
Another positive shock should follow last week in Linz when we saw former Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli working with Ostapenko. The Frenchwoman is a good friend of Ostapenko and it really seems like they are on the same wavelength. In their first tournament together, Ostapenko immediately reached the final where she lost to Cori Gauff. This week, the two continued to work together and the good results didn't stop. In Luxembourg, the Latvian beat Caty McNally, Elise Mertens and Antonia Lottner and you can see that she's playing with more confidence again.
Still struggling on serve
Anna Blinkova is playing with confidence for quite some time. The Russian will reach a new career high after Luxembourg, moving inside the top 60 at least. She's performing some of the best tennis of her career since late this summer. After losing to Naomi Osaka at the US Open, she won the tournament in New Haven, made the semifinals in Guangzhou and is on her next run this week.
In the first rounds of Luxembourg, Blinkova beat Linz winner Cori Gauff 6-4 6-0, Tatjana Maria 6-0 6-1 and Margarita Gasparyan who had to retire down 3-6 0-1. While Ostapenko got broken ten times in her first three matches, Blinkova only had to concede one single break of serve. Even though she lost to Kateryna Kozlova in the first round of Linz, the Russian still seems like the more consistent player to me. She's able to hit with Ostapenko on the fast courts here and definitely has the advantage of a steady serve.
After serving 14 respectively 10 double faults in her first two matches, Ostapenko only produced 3 of them in her quarterfinal match. It seems like she already made some progress, but her ball toss is still a mess as she's tossing it too far to the back often times. Things like that don't go away from one week to another. She will also feel more pressure from Blinkova than she did from Lottner, so I think the double faults and weak second serves will increase again in this matchup.
Wrong Woman Favored?
Ostapenko's second round win against Elise Mertens feels like a great result as well, but don't be fooled as I highly doubt the Belgian gave it her best, knowing that she qualified for Zhuhai where the WTA Elite Trophy starts next Tuesday. Making the final in Luxembourg would have meant that she only arrived in China the day before the tournament starts with a potential jet lag after a long flight.
All things considered, I think that Ostapenko's great run ends in today's semifinal where she's facing a dangerous, ascending opponent who's on fire herself. I do not agree with the odds and will bet on Anna Blinkova to reach the final.
