Alona Ostapenko | Photo: WTA
Latvian tennis players Alona Ostapenko and Anastasia Sevastova will meet in the first round of the Tokyo Olympic Games tournament with Russian Olympic Committee (OKR) athletes Jelena Vesnin and Frenchman Fiona Ferro, respectively. The Olympic tennis tournament will start on July 24 and end on August 1.
Both Latvian tennis players are among the unsown athletes and in the first round have received lower-ranking opponents. Ostapenko is in 30th place, but Vesina is in 305th place. In the WTA singles tournaments, the paths of the two tennis players have crossed twice and in both cases the opponent was superior, winning the first round of the 2016 Madrid WTA “Premier” series tournament and the 2018 Dubai WTA “Premier”.
The 34-year-old Vesin’s career has been most successful in doubles, winning three Grand Slam titles and also gold for the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games with Ekaterina Makarov. She has a total of 18 WTA titles in doubles. Three years ago, she was the leader of the doubles ranking.
She has won three titles in singles, two in 2013 and one in 2017. The highest place in the ranking – 13. Vesniina announced in November 2018 that she is pregnant, and after becoming a mother she returned to the court only this year. In the singles, the OKR tennis player won in two of the six games, while Ostapenko’s balance is 22-13.
In the second round, the winner of this match will face 11th place American Jennifer Brady (WTA 15th) or Italian Camilla George (WTA 58th). Olympic debutant Sevastova is 53rd in the WTA rank, while Ferro is 11th down. For both tennis players, this will be the first mutual game of their career.
24-year-old Ferro has not excelled in his career so far. Her account includes two WTA titles won in 2019 and 2020. This season she has won ten of 22 games, while Sevastova has 21 wins out of 36 matches. In the first round, the second round will have to be played with the planet’s first racket, Ashley Barthy, from Australia, or Spaniard Sarah Sorrives-Tormo (WTA 48).
64 tennis players take part in the single-player tournament, seven victories are needed to win the title. In the doubles tournament, Ostapenko and Sevastova will compete with Australians Samant Stosur and Ellen Peres. Five years ago in Rio de Janeiro, the champion was the unsown Puerto Rican tennis player Monica Puja, who is not currently pursuing a professional career. In his debut in three sets, Ostapenko acknowledged Stosura’s superiority. For the fifth time in the history of the Olympic Games, the competition will take place on hard courts.
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