Ostapenko joins Petra Kvitova, who won Wimbledon in 2011 and 2014, and last year's French Open champion Garbine Muguruza in a select group.
"I didn't see how people could play tennis on it".
Ostapenko is the youngest Grand Slam champion since Maria Sharapova at the 2006 U.S. Open, but remarkably middle-aged in terms of first-time major winners.
"After an additional scan, the muscle tear that I sustained in Rome will unfortunately not allow me to compete in the grass-court tournaments I was scheduled to play", she said on Facebook. "But then, when I went on court, I felt quite free". I'm just so happy. But Ostapenko would not go quietly, winning that game and the next three en route to forcing a third set.
She again summoned a veteran's resolve down 3-1 in the third set, taking the match's last five games and, fittingly, striking a pair of winners on the last two points. She took advantage of a bit of luck, too, holding for a 5-3 lead when she hit a backhand that clipped the top of the net, popped way up in the air, then dropped over onto Halep's side. "She's fun to watch", she said.
Vondrousova, beaten in the semifinals by Ostapenko as she went on to claim the 2014 junior Wimbledon crown, is being hailed as a rising star in the mold of Navratilova.
Rafael Nadal tops Wawrinka for record 10th French Open
He lost the next two points as well to give Nadal another break and the Spaniard raced across the finish line. Wawrinka, bidding for a fourth Grand Slam title, hailed Nadal as an opponent and sportsman.
Not only that but she is the first unseeded woman to win the Suzanne Lenglen trophy since 1933. The impatience of youth not only showed up in Ostapenko's play but also, occasionally, in her demeanor. No other man or woman has won 10 championships at the same major in the Open era, which began in 1968.
Ostapenko had promised to stick to her uncomplicated routine of attack-attack-attack before the final and was true to her word as she walloped 54 clean winners - and 54 unforced errors.
Still, there were plenty of entertaining points during the back-and-forth match between the disparate styles, played in a slight breeze with the temperature at about 80 degrees (above 25 Celsius) and with nary a cloud marking the azure sky.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Kuerten's 1997 victory came on the day Ostapenko was born.
In only her 18th match in one of the four majors, the 20-year-old Latvian fought back in audacious fashion from a set and 3-0 down to blaze past the experienced Romanian. "But I felt like I am going to do it maybe next year".
Fittingly she thumped a backhand victor past Halep to seal victory, before tossing her distinctive green headband into the crowd with a look of disbelief.
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