Updated at 19.20
JELENA OSTAPENKO CONTINUED her remarkable French Open run to reach a maiden Grand Slam final with a battling victory over Swiss Timea Bacsinszky on Court Philippe Chatrier.
The Latvian world number 47 celebrated her 20th birthday — and ruined her opponent’s 28th — with a 7-6 (7-4) 3-6 6-3 success, setting up a meeting with Romania’s Simona Halep.
Ostapenko, who has never won a WTA Tour title, forged ahead in a first set that lasted over an hour, including a tie-break in which just four of the 11 points went with serve.
Only Venus Williams had taken a set off Bacsinszky at the tournament prior to that and she hit back with a clinical second-set showing in which she made just four unforced errors.
But Ostapenko had the final say as she became the first unseeded player to reach the Roland Garros final since 1983, wrapping up the win in just shy of two and a half hours in a match that featured 16 breaks of serve and saw the victor claim only one extra point across the whole contest.
Halep advanced to the final with a similarly gritty 6-4 3-6 6-3 victory against Czech second seed Karolina Pliskova to reach her second French Open final.
The third seed last appeared in the Roland Garros decider in 2014, when she lost to Maria Sharapova in three sets.
Halep will enter this year’s final as the favourite but either way it’s guaranteed there will be a first-time Grand Slam winner on Saturday.
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