2017 Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open in China has picked its first finalist of this year's event as Ashleigh Barty of Australia cruised past the top 10 player and 2017 French Open winner Jelena Ostapenko fro Latvia. The 21-year-old Aussie has put together an outstanding display of tennis to score her third success over a top 10 player this week. En route to her first Premier 5 final, she got past Johanna Konta, Karolina Pliskova, Agnieszka Radwanska and the latest Jelena Ostapenko. A solid week of tennis that will propel her to the 23rd spot in the ranking.
If she wins the event, she will break inside the top 20 for the first time next Monday when the updated will be added to the existent order.
Jelena Ostapenko had no answer to neutralize Ashleigh Barty's display of tennis
The young Latvian came into this round after dispatching the current world No. 1 Garbine Muguruza in the previous round. This time, there was no room for a comeback as the Aussie rising star knew how the handle the strings of the match. As she did yesterday, Ostapenko went on to lose the inaugural act which is not uncommon given her reckless style of playing tennis. On the other side, Barty kept her head clear and didn't allow Ostapenko to get a sense of the match. The second set was all about maintaining an elevated pace forcing Ostapenko to go for riskier shots more often than she might have wanted.
In the end, it all ended with a bagel as a deflated Latvian player abandoned the fight.
Ending her Winning Streak, Ostapenko will take the good parts out of Wuhan. On Monday, she will climb up the list and be ranked No. 8 in the world. Having also secured a spot in the WTA Finals in Singapore for the first time she will be heading to Beijing for the last Premier Mandatory event of the season.
Ashleigh Barty seems to end the season the same way she has started it
Back in January, the seemingly unknown Ashleigh Barty stepped in as a new WTA sensation. She ended last season ranked outside the top 300 so her progress throughout this season is outstanding. Winning her maiden WTA title at a WTA International event in Kuala Lumpur she broke into the top 100.
She made it into another final at Birmingham (Premier category event) just before Wimbledon. Despite losing to Petra Kvitova, her ranking suffered another improvement. Entering the Premier 5 in Wuhan, she was ranked 37th in the world. Getting past three top 10 players in a matter of days shows that she might be ready to take her game into a new territory. She seems to know how to handle the pressure of a big match. Moreover, she displays a unique mental strength by not letting out any of her inner struggles.
