Jeļena Ostapenko

Ms. Ostapenko has no challenges remaining.

Welcome to No Challenges Remaining.

I'm Ben Rothenberg here for an annual episode as...

And Robachna played a decent amount of doubles in the past, a little bit anyway.

They're not playing week to week, but you still do get...

Ostapenko, who fans know and like, who's out there every week.

You get Mertens, who's known.

Like, there's players, you know, who are there who are—Shay Sui, obviously.

So really, you have to have that bit in there to be successful.

And the ones who are true ball bashers, your Alexandrovas and your Ostapenkos.

are kind of far too mercurial, far too up and down to really be that successful, actually.

So that's me kind of backing you up on that point.

But yes, we're going to start with the headline news, which is that Sonny Cartel has become the new British number one after reaching the final of Wuhan this past weekend.

Kartel became the lowest ranked player to reach the WTA 1000 final, beating Belinda Bencic, Jelena Ostapenko and Alina Svitolina along the way.

She eventually lost to French Open finalist Maja Trulinska in the final, who moves up to 11th in the WTA rankings after stunning compatriot Igor Sviatek in the semifinals.

George, we discussed Kartel's comeback two weeks ago when she made a run in Beijing, but what did you make of her week in Wuhan and this so far unbelievable comeback?

So I had to do it for like gay tennis.

So it was like anything from, what do you mean you're Luciano Darderi ignoring a ball kid wearing huge glasses? To, you know, what do you mean you're Yelena Ostapenko selling used perfume on her alts? If you had to pick one of those, amazing costume ideas, amazing ideas, which one would it be?

Honestly, I'm a big fan of the Taylor Townsend U.S. Open fourth round walkout.

I know.

Uh, has had some injuries, has had some issues.

But she went through Bencic, Paolini, Svitolina, and Ostapenko to get to the final.

Won the first set in that, so big power in her game for maybe not being the tallest player out there.

So excited to have her back in the mix, and it was a, uh, very, very strong run for her.

Here's a question that I'm delighted to hear you try to answer from Nebi.

If you were coaching Yelena Ostapenko, what would you work on or change in her game? I would never.

No, you can't reject the premise.

I just can't even think about it.