Jelena Ostapenko Shines at US Open with Fiery Performance

NEW YORK – Jelena Ostapenko is never far from the storm. On Sept 7 at the US Open, she was right in the eye of it again.

The 2017 French Open champion, playing women’s doubles with Hsieh Su-wei, moved into the quarter-finals with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Maya Joint and Chan Hao-ching. The scoreline looked routine. The match was anything but.

The tension spiked during a changeover. Hsieh walked to the chair to speak with the umpire, and Ostapenko, already simmering, pointed directly at the opposing team’s coach, demanding action.

The Latvian accused the coach of clapping and shouting after their errors and of sarcastically praising their shots in Chinese. Hsieh translated the comments for her partner, and that only hardened Ostapenko’s stance.

“They do this because they know they cannot beat us,” she told the umpire, calling the conduct “very disrespectful” and asking for a Chinese translator to be brought in.

The complaint had an immediate edge. Once the umpire agreed to address the situation, Ostapenko and Hsieh returned to the court with a sharper bite to their game. The fourth seeds tightened their grip, raised the tempo, and closed out the straight-sets victory with authority.

Then came the release.

Ostapenko turned toward the opposing box and roared, a full-throated celebration aimed straight at the source of her anger. The atmosphere, already prickly, turned icy at the net. Hsieh and Chan did not shake hands after the match, a rare but telling break from tennis protocol that underlined just how heated the encounter had become.

For Ostapenko, this was not a one-off flash of emotion but another entry in a growing catalogue of on-court confrontations.

At the 2025 US Open, she clashed verbally with American Taylor Townsend, accusing her of having “no class” and “no education” in an exchange that spilled well beyond standard competitive fire. She later apologised, saying her wording had been misunderstood because English is not her first language, but the episode reinforced a familiar image: a brilliant ball-striker who competes with her emotions right on the surface.

Here in New York again, that same edge was unmistakable. The shots were crisp, the stakes high, and the fuse short. And as Ostapenko and Hsieh march into the latter stages of the doubles draw, one question lingers over Flushing Meadows: with her game humming and her temper never far away, how many more sparks will fly before this US Open is done?