Jelena Ostapenko to face Simona Halep in French Open final after beating fellow birthday girl Timea Bacsinszky

PARIS // Latvian Jelena Ostapenko blazed a trail into the French Open final with a 7-6, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Swiss Timea Bacsinszky in a battle of the birthday girls on Thursday.

On the day she turned 20 the free-swinging world No 47 launched a fusillade of winners to become the first unseeded player to reach the women’s singles final at Roland Garros since Mima Jausovec lost to Chris Evert in 1983.

A match of wildly fluctuating fortunes, with barely a service hold in sight, appeared to be slipping away from Ostapenko when she lost four games in a row to lose the second set against Bacsinszky, who was hoping to celebrate her 28th birthday by going one better than her semi-final run in 2015.

But Ostapenko played fearlessly in the decider and pounded away a 50th clean winner to become the first Latvian player to reach a grand slam final.

She will play Romanian third seed Simona Haled, who defeated second seed Karolina Pliskova in three sets, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.

Halep on the brink

Simona Halep reached her second French Open final on Thursday with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win over Karolina Pliskova, taking her to within touching distance of a first grand slam title and the world No 1 spot.

Romanian third seed Halep, the runner-up to Maria Sharapova in 2014, will face unseeded Latvian Ostapenko.

The champion will be a first-time major winner while victory will also crown Halep as the new world No 1, replacing Angelique Kerber.

"It is an amazing feeling, I’m so happy," Halep said. "I came through a tough match [against Elina Svitolina] yesterday, but I just care about today. Karolina is a good player and made it tough.

"It is nice to be in the final again, I hope I can play better and win it. I’m playing a young player, it is a big challenge and it will be great to play here on Chatrier again."

Bopanna becomes fourth India to win major

India’s Rohan Bopanna and Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski saved two match points to claim their first grand slam title on Thursday with victory in the French Open mixed doubles final.

The seventh seeds defeated Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and Colombia’s Robert Farah 2-6, 6-2, 12-10 in the final.

But they did it the hard way, coming back from a set and break down as well as trailing 9-7 in the super tiebreak where they faced two match points.

It was a first major title for both Bopanna, 37, and his 25-year-old partner from Ontario.

"It’s truly special. You know, you always, as an athlete, when you start playing tennis, you want to win a grand slam," Bopanna said.

Bopanna is only the fourth Indian player to win a major title after Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza.

Bangalore-based Bopanna said victory was particularly special as it came 20 years after Bhupathi had teamed with Japan’s Rika Hiraki to win the mixed crown in Paris.

"It’s really, really special, especially for India. I think mixed doubles was the first slam 20 years ago, you know, when Mahesh won it.

"I’m really happy to be part of those athletes who have won slams after that. For me, it was always a personal goal to win a slam."

The pair only teamed up at the US Open last year and made the quarter-finals at the Australian Open.

"At the US Open, I put my name on the looking list, and Rohan texted me. I think it was the morning of sign in," Dabrowski recalled.

"Luckily for where my ranking was at the time, and him being 17, of course I said yes immediately."

Mirza was amongst the first to congratulate Bopanna and Dabrowski.

"Bopannnaaaaaaaaa ... long time coming !!well done you two #grandslamchampion," tweeted Mirza, a mixed doubles champion in Paris in 2012.

* Agencies

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