The defending champion “curse” strikes again!

We knew it was going to be a tough first round match for the 20 year old Jelena Ostapenko (5) of Latvia when she walked onto Court Philippe Chatrier to face the unseeded Kateryna Kozlova of the Ukraine today.

A tough match for a few reasons – in their previous two meetings, Kozlova had gotten the better of her, and being 20 years old and a defending champion just ups the pressure to a higher level.

Ostapenko never looked at ease during their 1h34 match, serving up 13 double faults and hitting 48 unforced errors, thus allowing Koznova to make it three in a row with a 7-5 6-3 win.

Ostapenko joins an elite group of defending champions, including Steffi Graf, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Jennifer Capriati and Anastasia Myskina, who have fallen prey to this “curse”.