Attack vs defence: Attack rules, Jelena Ostapenko wins a maiden French Open and Grand Slam title

The unforced errors column, at the end of a sometimes brilliant, sometimes erratic, but definitely fascinating women's singles final of the French Open, read: Jelena Ostapenko 54, Simona Halep 10. The winners column: Jelena Ostapenko 54, Simona Halep 8.

So, no prizes for guessing which player attacked, attacked and attacked in this final, going for broke in pretty much every point, and which player tried to win this French Open 2017 final on defence.

In the end, the attacker won, with Ostapenko pulling off a quite remarkable come-from-behind victory over Halep, who has now lost two finals at Roland Garros, to clinch her first French Open and first Grand Slam title. Indeed, this was her first proper singles win of any kind, with Ostapenko yet to clinch a title on the WTA Tour.

There was a point in the first set when Ostapenko's unforced errors on the backhand, backhand alone, was at 10, with Halep's a big fat zero. That pretty much said what was going on in that set, and try as Ostapenko might, that power of hers just could not find a way through Halep's defence.

The first set ended with Halep counter-attacking to get to set point, and then calmly waiting for Ostapenko to make an unforced error on the pressure point, which the Latvian duly did.

It looked like the match was done, as Halep quickly jumped into a 6-4, 3-0 lead and then had break points to get a double break on Ostapenko.

But that big hitting of the unseeded player brought her back.

Ostapenko, after somehow managing to hold to keep the score at 1-3, just pulled the crazy hitting back half a notch, and thanks to that, the range returned, the shots started to fall in, Halep struggled to cope and all the calmness of the Romanian turned into nervousness.

Sensing the change in momentum, Ostapenko went back up that half a notch to top gear, and quickly rattled home game after game after game, eventually taking the second set to push this final to the decider.

The force was now with Ostapenko, but Halep hung in there, managing to hold onto her serve in the first game, despite facing break points, and even jumping into a 3-1 lead by getting the better of the Ostapenko serve.

However, there was just not stopping those winners from the unstoppable youngster. It came raining down in the next game, the break back was completed, and from there it was the 20-year-old all the way.

French Open women's singles final: Jelena Ostapenko beat Simona Halep 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in one hour and 59 minutes.