Every player wants to win a title, most players when asked about their goals, will say they want to win a Major title and be ranked number one; however, few are ever fully prepared to handle the success when their goal is achieved.  Let’s take a look at Eugenie Bouchard; she was the darling of tennis in 2014.  She was on her way and nothing could stop her, at least that’s what many thought and began to believe when she made it to the final of Wimbledon that same year.  She was shoved into the spotlight abruptly and was totally unprepared emotionally to handle the demands and expectations.  Although she has made it back to four finals, she has suffered some unexpected losses and she has not been the same player since that Wimbledon final.  Will her game ever get back to the consistent level that propelled her up the rankings (she was a top ten player) and to the final of a Major?

Then we have Garbine Muguruza; she was the 2015 Wimbledon finalist and then she underperformed for the rest of the season until she won the French Open title in 2016.  Muguruza has readily admitted that she did not handle the success of getting to the Wimbledon final in 2015 well.  The demands and expectations of the public seemed to take a toll on her emotionally and detrimentally affected her tennis.  We hoped the second time around she would be better prepared.   She won her first Major in 2016 at Roland Garros; however, her performance since then has been baffling and once again her game appears to have been stunted by her success.  Unfortunately, she could not elevate her game enough to defend her title and she lost in the round of sixteen to Kristina Mladenovic.  The consequence of her inability to cope with everything that success entails is a drop in her ranking; she is no longer in the top ten and has fallen to number fifteen in the rankings.

Given the less than stellar performance of the above mentioned players who were propelled into the spotlight because of success, one can only wonder “How will Jelena Ostapenko handle her recent success?”  She entered the tournament as a teenager and came out as a young adult who was the 2017 French Open Champion.  She is the first Latvian to win a Major title.  She is the first unseeded player to win the Roland Garros title since the 1933 champion, Margaret Scriven.  So many firsts for this young lady and all these historic accomplishments will keep her at the forefront of the media for some time to come.  How will her game be affected by the expectations, not only of the public, but her own self-imposed expectations?  There is still a lot of tennis to play this season and everyone will be keeping a close eye on her performance. Will she continue to build on her impressive performance, or will her game also be adversely affected by success?

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