Jelena Ostapenko says she knew she would 'obviously beat' Iga Swiatek at Qatar Open in bold message after 5th straight win vs Pole

Jelena Ostapenko was very confident ahead of her matchup against Iga Swiatek and she backed it up on the court by beating her comfortably in two sets. The match was a rather fascinating one because it had a former champion of this event, Swiatek, and one of the most volatile players ever, Ostapenko.

Swiatek hasn't been playing superb tennis this year but was grinding out wins somehow. Ostapenko, meanwhile, was playing some of her best tennis this week and she backed it up today by winning easily. The result got to Swiatek so much that at one point she threw her racket, something that doesn't necessarily happen too many times.

As for Ostapenko, she enjoyed the view and certainly didn't hold back her thoughts after beating Swiatek:

"Thank you guys for coming. I feel like this court has a special energy. It was always helping me. Everything started for me on this court. So yeah, I was pretty confident that I would obviously beat her because we played a lot of matches and I kind of know how to play against her.

"I was just more focused on myself and knew what I had to do. I'm happy with the way I'm handling my emotions this week. I'm just so happy to be in the finals. Thank you guys."

Ostapenko is not a player who will exhibit false humility just for the sake of it. She's quite famous for expressing how she really feels about a certain situation and this was it. She was confident, she backed it up on the court, and she spoke her truth after the match.

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Jelena Ostapenko a nightmare matchup for Swiatek

Qatar TotalEnergies Open - Day Five - Source: Getty

Ostapenko has been historically a pretty nightmare matchup for Swiatek. She is also quite volatile as a player herself, meaning that her form can be all over the place. She can be tremendously good and hard for anybody to beat but also quite poor.

Something just works for her against Swiatek because she just beats her comfortably recently. Her comments show it and the results back it up. Today wasn't very comfortable for Swiatek which some have noted. Tennis analysts like Pam Shriver expressed on social media that she looked quite anxious and that might simply be because of the matchup.

They have now played five times and Ostapenko has won very single one. Some of those were quite painful as well such as the one at the 2023 US Open which allowed Sabalenka to become World No. 1.

It was this loss that cost Swiatek a lot of points as she was the defending champion ensuring ultimately that she would not be World No. 1 anymore. The Qatar Open matchup was the next one they played and it was arguably one of the most lopsided ones as Ostapenko won 6-3, 6-1.