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Sumnima Kandangwa

Freelance Editorial Assistant for Style by SCMP


Latvian tennis star Jelena Ostapenko and her Taiwanese partner, Hsieh Su-wei, missed out on the US Open women’s doubles semi-finals after losing to Elise Mertens and Diana Shnaider on Tuesday.
Leading up to the match, Ostapenko was at ⁠the centre of another ⁠heated US Open exchange on Monday, confronting an opposing coach after reaching the women’s doubles quarter-finals with Hsieh.

The fourth seeds beat Australian-Taiwanese pair Maya ‌Joint and Chan Hao-ching 6-4, 6-4, but tempers flared after Ostapenko took exception to the behaviour of their opponents’ coach.
Hsieh had approached the umpire during a changeover and Ostapenko pointed towards the opposing team’s coach, urging the official to intervene. The ⁠Latvian said the coach had been clapping and shouting after their ‌mistakes and sarcastically praising their shots in Chinese, which Hsieh translated for her.
“They do this because they ‌know they cannot beat us,” Ostapenko told the umpire, calling ⁠the behaviour “very ⁠disrespectful” and asking for the presence of a Chinese translator.
After the umpire agreed ‌to deal with the situation, the pair returned to the court and turned up the ‌heat ‌to seal the straight-sets win. Ostapenko then celebrated by roaring towards ‌the opposing box while Hsieh and Chan did not shake hands ⁠at the end of the fiery encounter.

Ostapenko, the 2017 French Open ⁠singles champion, has been involved in several on-court disputes. At last year’s US Open, she accused Taylor Townsend of having “no ‌class” and “no education” in ‌a verbal confrontation with the American. Ostapenko later apologised, saying her choice of words during the exchange had been misunderstood because English was not her first language.

Here’s everything you need to know about Jelena Ostapenko.
What is Jelena Ostapenko’s background?

Jelena Ostapenko was born in June 1997 to parents Jelena Jakovleva and Jevgenijs Ostapenko.
Both of Ostapenko’s parents are former athletes. Her late father was a professional Ukrainian footballer who played for FC Metalurh Zaporizhzhia, per EssentiallySports. He was 43 years old when he passed away in 2020.
According to her interview with Latvian Public Service Media, Ostapenko’s mother, a former tennis coach, introduced her to the sport when she was only five years old.
The now 29-year-old has previously revealed that she prefers to go by the name “Alona”, which was the preferred name her parents chose when she was born. They ended up legally naming her “Jelena” as the name “Alona” did not appear on the Latvian calendar – in Latvia and several other European countries, there is a tradition of celebrating “name days” where locals celebrate names associated with the days of the year as listed on their calendar.
“Everyone who knows, they call me Alona,” Ostapenko told The New York Times in 2017. “I don’t like when people call me Jelena if they know.”
She gave up professional dancing for tennis

When Ostapenko started playing tennis, she was introduced to ballroom dancing around the same time and would go on to dance at the national level for seven years.
“I chose the tennis because I liked it more and I had better results,” she told AFP in 2016.
The tennis prodigy won the junior Wimbledon singles title in 2014 and her ITF junior ranking peaked at No 2 in September that year. She has since won nine WTA tour-level titles, including her recent victory against world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus at the Stuttgart Open final in 2025.
She was coached by her mother through major parts of her career, including when she won her first grand slam at Roland-Garros in 2017, becoming the first Latvian to do so.
Who is Jelena Ostapenko dating?

The tennis star was previously linked to Latvian football player Arturs Karasausks, but she has moved on and has been sharing couple snaps with her new beau on Instagram.
There is little information available about Ostapenko’s new partner, who uses the Instagram handle @kriossss and keeps his profile private, while attaching a link to Ostapenko’s website in his account bio.
With additional reporting from Reuters


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The 2017 French Open winner, who defeated Aryna Sabalenka at last year’s Stuttgart Open final, was once a national-level ballroom dancer


The 2017 French Open winner, who defeated Aryna Sabalenka at last year’s Stuttgart Open final, was once a national-level ballroom dancer.


Meet Jelena Ostapenko, the fiery Latvian tennis star making headlines over US Open drama

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The 2017 French Open winner, who defeated Aryna Sabalenka at last year’s Stuttgart Open final, was once a national-level ballroom dancer

The 2017 French Open winner, who defeated Aryna Sabalenka at last year’s Stuttgart Open final, was once a national-level ballroom dancer