Jeļena Ostapenko, also known as Aļona Ostapenko, is a Latvian professional tennis player. She has career-high WTA rankings of world No. 5 in singles, achieved on 19 March 2018, and world No. 17 in doubles, reached on 2 March 2020.
Ostapenko won the 2017 French Open singles title, becoming the first player from Latvia to win a Grand Slam singles tournament and the first unseeded player to win the French Open since 1933. In addition to her singles career, she has played as a member of the Latvia Fed Cup team. She has won seven singles and eight doubles titles on the ITF Women’s Circuit, and she also won the junior singles event at the 2014 Wimbledon Championships.
Ostapenko was born in Riga to former Ukrainian footballer Jevgēnijs Ostapenko (d. 2020) and Jeļena Jakovļeva. Jevgēnijs played professional football for FC Metalurh Zaporizhya in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia where Jeļena’s grandmother lives.
Jeļena has one half-brother, Maksim, who lives in the United States. She was introduced to tennis at age five by her mother and idolized Serena Williams while growing up. She also started dancing at that age, going on to compete in the National Latvian Championships for Ballroom Dancing.
At the age of 12, she chose to focus on tennis, but she credits her good coordination and skilled footwork to her years of dancing. She speaks Latvian, Russian, and English.
