For the first time since 2005 the women’s defending champion has been bundled out in the first round. Back then it was Russia’s Anastasia Myskina who became the first female champion to go out in the first round. This time Jelena Ostapenko lost 7-5, 6-3 to Ukraine’s Kateryna Kozlova.
Ostapenko admitted that she was feeling the pressure of being the defending champion and made too many errors to have a chance to win. “I think it was terrible day at the office today for me. I mean, in general, I played maybe like 20% of what I can play,” Ostapenko said after the match.
“I made like 50 unforced errors and so many double faults, and couldn’t serve today. Everything together just brought me a really bad result. I had this unbelievable pressure. I felt that I’m not myself today on court.
“The day began not like in a nice way and I knew that something like that can happen but I was trying to be positive and to think positive, but in the end I couldn’t really do that.”
The No.5 seed struck 48 unforced errors and 13 doubles faults, as she served at just 47% for the match and was broken seven times.
No. 67 Kozlova went into the match with a 2-0 head-to-head record and was first to break. Ostapenko got back to 4-4 before again dropping a service game to lose the first set.
More of the same in the second set saw Ostapenko give a farewell wave to the Roland Garros crowd.
