ZCZC
BSP-01
TENNIS-OPEN-AUS-OSTAPENKO
Ostapenko survives battling Schiavone test
MELBOURNE, Jan 15, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko
survived a second-set scare from corset-wearing Italian veteran Francesca
Schiavone to get her Australian Open campaign off to winning start on Monday.
World number seven Ostapenko raced through the first set on Rod Laver
Arena against the 2010 Roland Garros winner 6-1.
But she found herself 4-1 down in the second to the world number 93 who
was bizarrely wearing a weightlifter-style back brace over her tennis top.
The big-hitting Latvian soon found her range again and hit back with two
breaks of the Schiavone serve, the second achieved with a trademark forehand
winner.
Ostapenko then served out with no further alarms to take the match 6-1, 6-
4 in one hour and 14 minutes.
“Second set I was missing a little bit but I managed to get through,” said
Ostapenko, who was recording her maiden match victory of 2018 having lost in
the first rounds at both the Shenzhen and Sydney warm-up events.
She will next meet China’s Duan Yingying who overcame Colombia’s Mariana
Duque -Marino in straight sets.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0821 hrs