No.12 seed Ostapenko safely through after early scare

By Charlie Stong, on No.3 Court at Wimbledon.

Jelena Ostapenko bt Irina-Camelia Begu 3-6, 6-1, 6-1.

Number 12 seed Jelena Ostapenko took time to get into gear in the opening match on No.3 Court, but once she did she swept aside Irina-CamelIa Begu with relative ease.

The Latvian lost the first set 6-3, but then went on a nine-game winning streak – only losing one out of 13 games to take the match 3-6, 6-1, 6-1.

It was a while before Ostapenko found her range, hitting relatively simple balls long in the early stages.

Romanian Begu, the world number 43, deservedly claimed the first break of service of the match – in the third game, but the favourite hit back immediately to level things at 2-2.

However Ostapenko was broken twice further in the first set. She saved two set points at 3-5, but Begu pounced on a second serve at 30-40, Ostapenko hitting long to hand the first set to her opponent.

Begu held the first game of the second set but, in an unfortunate turn of events for the Romanian, her serve began to let her down at exactly the point when Ostapenko was upping her game.

The more powerful Latvian began to jump on Begu’s weaker second service – and began her unstoppable charge to victory.

She dropped just one point on her serve, which itself was improving, in the next two games and took the set after Begu threw in a foot fault at 1-5, 0-30. The Romanian mishit a forehand long to hand the set to Ostapenko.

The favourite’s ground strokes were also improving as she raced into a 3-0 lead in the decider.

And although Begu was able to halt the run of consecutive games at nine, she was broken again to make it 5-1 to Ostapenko and hit a forehand into the net on match point to hand victory to her opponent.

Pictured top: Action from the match out on No.3 Court (Picture: Charlie Stong)