Paris: The last unseeded teenager who reached the semi-final at Roland-Garros was Jelena Ostapenko, who stormed to the title in 2017 - the very same year that a left-handed 17-year-old from the Czech Republic made her Grand Slam debut on the Paris clay.
Two years on, 19-year-old Marketa Vondrousova has booked her place in the last four with a big-hitting 7-6 (1), 7-5 victory over the No.31 seed, Petra Martic, a player who led 4-0 in their previous encounters.
“[Ostapenko] did amazing things that year, and she was the same age as me,” Vondrousova said, acknowledging the Latvian’s performance was, and remains, an inspiration - and something she is now just two wins away from replicating herself. “I mean, it's very tough to win these matches and, like, win seven matches in a row. It's like a dream now, and I'm just very happy.”
What aspect of this quarter-final victory did she take particular satisfaction in? “I’m just so happy that I beat her at last!” said Vondrousova with delightful understatement. Happy to beat Martic? Or happy to reach the semi final? “Both!” she said, beaming.
Asked to expand on the variety and finesse she brings to the big-hitting aggressive style we associate with the Czech women’s game, she said simply, “It’s fun for me. I’m really enjoying it. I try to serve well, move well. I like drop shots.” She might have added lobs, for on Tuesday evening, she displayed a near-perfect lob radar.
En route to her semi-final meeting with Britain’s Johanna Konta, Vondrousova has maintained an extraordinary statistic:
she is yet to drop a set in five rounds at Roland-Garros 2019.
In the evening quarter-final on Court Suzanne-Lenglen, it was the prospect of dropping a set for the first time that was the turning point, and seemed to galvanise her towards victory. It was insane, she agreed. “But I wasn't thinking, I just tried to focus on my game.
