Six interesting facts about Jeļena Ostapenko

Her childhood hero was Serena Williams

Ostapenko idolized Serena Williams while growing up. She would never miss a Serena match, and she would often get very emotional if the legendary American would lose.

Ostapenko’s dream is to one day play against Serena in a Grand Slam match. The way she is progressing in her career, that day may come sooner rather than later.

Her father is former football player player

Jelena Ostapenko’s father, Jevgenijs Ostapenko is a former football player who played in Ukraine.

He was also reported to be her fitness coach, but she denied any of these rumors.

As of last year, Jelena still lives with her parents and she is quite happy about that.

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“I enjoy that because my parents, they know me since I was born and they know me the best,” she told ASAP Sports. “So I’m really happy they can be with me all the time.”

Her mother used to be her coach

Jelena Ostapenko’s mother has had a huge influence in her daughter’s career. She was the one who pushed Jelena into the sport and took care of her game from the very start.

“When I was a kid I was with my mom always at the tennis club,” Ostapenko told Tennis.com. “And she didn’t say that I have to play tennis, I just liked it. I went by myself to play against the wall, and that’s how I started.”

She is a former Wimbledon Junior champion

Jelena’s success on clay is all the more surprising given her preference for hard surfaces. In fact, clay is her least favourite surface.

Jelena has an aggressive game which makes her more threatening on hard surfaces, which was seen by her success in the Junior Wimbledon championships in 2014.

She had won the Junior Wimbledon title in 2014 and was ranked world number two in that year as well.