Jelena Ostapenko is one of the most recognizable faces in tennis, and part of that might be due to her unique personality.
The Latvian tennis player is unique because some of her antics have never been seen before on the tennis court. She stands out among many other tennis players who try their best to follow the unspoken rules of tennis.
Ostapenko tosses those rules out the window and simply acts like herself, which can sometimes be quite interesting. She’s well known for her distrust of line-calling technology, which she admitted a few times.
She’s also known for being in disbelief most of the time during a match, especially if a ball sails wide. She’s also had some really tense handshakes at times, and she talked about it recently during an appearance on the Tennis Channel.
“When I lose, I’m really disappointed, and honestly, I have to shake hands, but that’s the last thing I want to do in that moment. I mean, I probably should be better in this, but I’m really like disappointed after the loss.”
“Because my mentality is like a champion’s mentality, especially if I was fighting until the last point and I lost the match, I’m really angry. It’s nothing like personal to the opponents, I’m just really disappointed.”
However, such feelings aren’t unique only to Ostapenko because most tennis players likely feel the same, but they adhere to the unwritten rules of tennis when trying to shake the opponent’s hand.
The Latvian player just does her thing, and sometimes, it comes off as disrespectful, but she’s just keeping it real. As she noted, it has nothing to do with the opponent; it’s just her being in major disbelief that she was able to lose the match after being in major disbelief that she committed many unforced errors.
