Jelena Ostapenko: She wins when she wants

There is no substitute for experience. Apart from inexperience. For a novice whose previous best achievement at a Grand Slam was reaching the third round of Wimbledon last year, Jeļena Ostapenko looks as comfortable with clay as water. At times in this tournament, the kid from Riga, ranked 47th in the world, has walked on it.

When the heat has come on in her past three outings at Roland Garros against vastly more clued-up competitors in 23rd seed Samantha Stosur, 11th seed Caroline Wozniacki and Timea Bacsinszky, the 30th seed, Ostapenko has appeared to add a decade to her newly-turned 20-year-old frame. She has looked more at one with her surroundings around Roland Garros than a panama hat and some Ray-Bans.

Handling pressure is one thing. Handling it with a smile on your face, playing like you are enjoying a friendly knock-up on some idle afternoon with your mates yet performing like it means the world to you is another thing altogether.

With bludgeoning forehands, a vociferous appetite for the battle, the gleaming good health of youth and a sunny disposition, Ostapenko was born for this.

She is a marketing person's dream, a former Wimbledon junior champion, whose earning ability will stretch far beyond the confines of her native Latvia, a country with a population of merely two million.

She has bore a path to the final amid a bundle of bedlam, apparently weighing in with a heftier forehand than the men's world number one Andy Murray while apparently giving no great thought about missing. Eurosport pundit Greg Rusedski says the technique of her forehand reminds him a bit of Andre Agassi. Like Agassi, she resembles a street fighter on court.

But earning coin only comes with courage. On her 20th birthday on Thursday, Ostapenko perhaps heralded the start of a new world order in women's tennis with a 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-3 win over Swiss Bacsinszky.

Third seed Simona Halep starts as favourite in the final, but looking anything like a cert on Saturday if Ostapenko can mimic her level.

Women’s tennis is holding out for a hero after being left looking like a poor man’s version of the men’s game. With Serena Williams pregnant and firmly on the back nine of her 23-times major-winning career and Maria Sharapova returning from a doping ban, there is certainly room for another household name to adorn the women's scene.

Petra Kvitova is playing her way back to health after surviving a despicable life-threatening knife attack, but there are not too many players around who you suspect could carry the sport beyond the confines of its enthusiasts. Certainly not in the manner of Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles or the Williams sisters.

But perhaps that is about to change.

If Halep is unaware of the dangers that confront her, she should study Ostapenko’s win over Wozniacki in the quarter-finals on Tuesday and the fashion in which she cooled Timea Bacsinszky when she was getting hot.

Having recovered from the losing the first set to former US Open champion Stosur in a 2-6 6-2 6-4 win, she lost the first five games against Wozniacki, but blitzed her way through 16 of the last 21 games for a resounding 4-6 6-2 6-2 victory.

The Dane had led 2-1 in the final set when the match was interrupted for a second time due to rain, but Ostapenko emerged from the locker room to snag the final five games as Wozniaki was visibly winded before being floored.

She threw 38 winners and made 50 unforced errors against Wozniaki. She walloped 50 winners beyond Timea Bacsinszky and threw in 45 unforced errors. She is unpredictable which is part of the joy of watching her. Jelena Ostapenko: She wins when she wants.

Leading 3-1 in the deciding set, she had a game point for 4-1, but could not convert as Bacsinszky restored parity at 3-3.

You feared for her especially on balls being dropped short to the forehand side, but it was only a momentarily concern as she found another gear or three to romp through the final three games, thumping winners with utter freedom to complete a rousing 7-6 3-6 6-3 success.

She is exciting to watch because she goes for broke. She will go down in a hail of baseline bullets whatever happens in the final. Should she win on Saturday against third seed Simona Halep, Ostapenko will become only the second unseeded player to win the women's title in Paris after Margaret Scriven of Britain in 1933.

She had never won a match at the French Open until this year, but could astonishingly make the French Open her maiden tour title, emulating Gustavo Kuerten, who produced a similar feat in 1997 in the men's game on the day Ostapenko was born.

Remarkably enough, at 20 she is middle aged when it comes to winning a Grand Slam for the first time. Twelve women have won their first title at a younger age ranging from Martina Hingis claiming the Australian Open in 1997 at the age of 16, before Ostapenko was born, to Chris Evert enjoying success at the French aged 19 in 1974.

At 20, Ostapenko doesn't yet have the key to the door, but perhaps she has more. Perhaps she already holds more.

Potentially the future of the women’s game is in her hands.