WTA500 Stuttgart: Aryna Sabalenka vs Jelena Ostapenko final analysis
Ostapenko finally solved Sabalenka to capture first title on clay since 2017 French Open
This year’s Porsche Tennis Grand Prix title decider was as much about winning the most prestigious non-Slam/WTA 1000 event of the season as it was about escaping a dreaded fourth defeat.
Jelena Ostapenko (WTA #24) came in with a 0-3 career record against Aryna Sabalenka (WTA #1) whereas the top seed was playing in her fourth final in Stuttgart but still chasing a first title.
Losing finalist between 2021 and 2023, Sabalenka fell every time to the then world #1: Ash Barty in 2021 and Iga Swiatek in 2022 and 2023. A track record that originated the following comments at the start of the week:
“I lost three finals here against #1s. So I was, like, okay I have to do it. I have to come back here as the world #1. I want to finally win the Porsche this year.”
— Aryna Sabalenka
As it turned out, playing in Stuttgart while on top of the WTA rankings still wasn’t enough for the Belorusian.
Instead, Ostapenko earned a new drive with a convincing 6-4, 6-1 win in the championship match.
The Latvian secured her 9th career title and first on clay since her triumphant 2017 Roland Garros campaign.
She improved her lifetime record against world #1s to 3 wins in 4 matches and also became the third player this season to defeat the Top-2 players (Sabalenka and Swiatek) en route to a tournament victory, emulating Madison Keys in Melbourne and Mirra Andreeva in Indian Wells.
The 2025 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix final was decided by these key factors:
Ostapenko was excellent behind 1st serves, perfect when serving to Sabalenka’s backhand
Sabalenka made thrice more “serve+1” errors
Ostapenko’s 2nd serve was her weak link but she made up for it with high-quality returning
Contrasting forehand performances led to a final 20-point gap
1. Ostapenko was excellent behind 1st serves, perfect when serving to Sabalenka’s backhand
Ostapenko lost just 6 of 31 1st serve points. Her outstanding 81% win-rate (25/31) when landing a 1st serve was head and shoulders above Sabalenka’s 53% (18/34).
Even more impressive was the fact Ostapenko went a perfect 18-for-18 when sending a 1st serve towards Sabalenka’s backhand. This included:
3 aces down the T and 5 serves that extracted return errors while going 12-for-12 on the Deuce court (marked by yellow circle, image below)
an ace and an unreturned serve while finishing 6-for-6 on the AD side (marked by green circle).
2. Sabalenka made thrice more “serve+1” errors
Up against Ostapenko’s phenomenal numbers, Sabalenka had little margin for error when serving. But her title hopes were destroyed by a pile of errors on the first shot after the serve, also called “serve+1”, which in turn were at the origin of her low 53% 1st serve win-rate.
First, here’s a look at the overall “serve+1” stats:
“Serve+1” Performances
Sabalenka: 4 winners / 14 errors
Ostapenko: 2 winners / 4 errors
Sabalenka accumulated 14 “serve+1” errors, 10 more (or 3.5x more) than Ostapenko’s total of 4.
That huge difference gets even worse for the world #1 when we consider that: