"It's quite difficult for her mentally": Jelena Ostapenko breaks down hoodoo she holds over World No.1 Iga Swiatek

A fellow former Roland Garros champion, Jelena Ostapenko holds a bit of a hoodoo over the current dominant World No.1, Iga Swiatek who has never defeated the Latvian.

Swiatek has yet to beat Ostapenko in four meetings on the WTA Tour and in particular the US Open heralded one of the best results despite going down a set and she spoke recently about why she thinks that hoodoo is there.

“I think it’s quite difficult for her mentally to play against me because I won many times,” Ostapenko said in an interview with LSM.lv.

“She doesn’t like my style of tennis either. She likes to dictate the game more and she also tries to play aggressively. It is difficult for her in games against me – I try to play more aggressively. At the “US Open” I played against her, I lost the first set, but I continued to play my game anyway. I played aggressively and I think that’s how I won.”

But one player who then thrashed her was Coco Gauff and she is full of praise for the US Open champion.

“She is a good player, still young. She plays much differently than Swiatek,” Ostapenko commented.

“She has a good serve, and plays well from the left, but when the score is equal, she goes more to the defence. Therefore, maybe against her, it is a bit more difficult. She runs very, very fast. Balls that many girls might not hit, she will hit, and sometimes they are very uncomfortable.”

Speaking also about her season, she believes she hasn't received plaudits for a great year albeit without some of the rewards which she wants next.

“It was a pretty good season overall. Tournaments have been won, I finished the year in the Top 15. I think that step by step we (me and my team) need to return to the Top 10. We should try to win another Grand Slam,” she said.

“It is a pleasure that I was in the quarter-finals of two Grand Slams. It’s a good achievement, but for me, the achievement is just winning because I am a leader and I like to win. I don’t like to lose in the semi-finals and quarter-finals.”