Jeļena Ostapenko, also known as Aļona Ostapenko, is a Latvian professional tennis player with a career-high WTA rankings of world No. 5 in singles, achieved on 19 March 2018, and world No. 17 in doubles, reached on 2 March 2020.
Ostapenko has won seven singles and eight doubles titles on the ITF Women’s Circuit, and she also won the junior singles event at the 2014 Wimbledon Championships.
Ostapenko was born in Riga to former footballer Jevgēnijs Ostapenko and Jeļena Jakovļeva.
Ostapenko’s dad Jevgēnijs played professional football for FC Metalurh Zaporizhya in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia where Jeļena’s grandmother lives. Sadly, he died in 2020.
Ostapenko’s legal name is Jeļena, but she is known to her family and friends as Aļona.
When she was born, her parents’ desired name of Aļona was not on the Latvian name calendar, so she was named Jeļena after her mother.
Ostapenko has one half-brother, Maksim, who lives in the United States.
Ostapenko was introduced to tennis at age five by her mother and idolized Serena Williams while growing up.