Dhe sky over Wimbledon showed itself from its most beautiful side, presented picturesque clouds against summer blue. It was the perfect setting for a special victory and the next entry in the book of tennis history. With a success in three sets (5: 7, 6: 1, 6: 1) against the Polish Iga Swiatek, the best player on a whole continent landed in the quarter-finals of the Championships for the first time. A few weeks after her first tournament victory on the WTA tour, Ons Jabeur from Tunisia, 26 years old, took the next big step and the Arab world watched in awe.
This woman doesn’t come from nowhere; Ons Jabeur has played a special role on tennis courts around the world for a while. She is not only one of the best performers, but also brings a variety of shot variants: jumped backhand, slice backhand short or long, especially on grass it can also be a pike jump while volley and repeatedly stops, stops, stops. Her previous coaches had often asked her not to overdo it with this risky blow, but she was stubborn.
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Typical? Somehow. Jabeur says the way she plays reflects her character. “I don’t like routine. On the pitch, I like different shots and I want to have fun, and I want that outside too. ”The name of her favorite player, Andy Roddick, also fits into the program. Someone who not only made a powerful impact on the serve, but also struck with his dry, sometimes sarcastic sense of humor.
For a while it was said that Ons Jabeur was not making enough of their diverse possibilities, but that has not been true for a year and a half at the latest. At the Australian Open in January 2020 she was the first player from North Africa and the Arab region to reach the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam tournament, in Paris in 2020 and 2021 she followed up with the second round, now the next quarter-finals will follow – a remarkable series.
For almost an hour on Monday against Iga Swiatek it looked like the next win for Jabeur and Tunisia was on the way, but the Pole grabbed the last three games of the first set and seemed to have an advantage after that. Jabeur struck back immediately, took the lead and was then unstoppable. She grabbed the second set with a stop ball on the return – something that’s always a pleasure to watch – and she finished the third with an ace.
Ons Jabeur does the work of a pioneer for North Africa and the Arab region. With her own example, she describes what the situation is like. “Sometimes you just need someone who can inspire you and show you the way. At first I didn’t believe in myself because there was no example of another Tunisian for me. And it’s still difficult, because somehow I’m not just playing for myself, but for the whole continent. “
“They want me to win a Grand Slam tournament”
When she won her first title on the WTA tour at the grass tournament in Birmingham in mid-June, the story made big waves – of course it was the first title for a woman from the Arab world – and she is now surfing one of these waves at the championships . In round two the win against Venus Williams, five-time winner of the tournament, in round three against Garbiñe Muguruza, Wimbledon winner 2017, and now on Monday against Iga Swiatek, who won the French Open last year.
It was the successes number 31 to 33 this year, no competitor has any more. Only one has the same number, Aryna Sabalenka (Belarus), against whom she will play in the quarter-finals this Tuesday. And that could be an exciting comparison of the systems, because in contrast to Jabeur, Sabalenka belongs more to the faction “Hau-drauf-und -schluss”.
To be noticed more now than before is certainly one of the sunny sides of a series of successes, but victories also arouse desires. “Sure, people in Tunisia are now more interested in tennis than they used to be,” says Ons Jabeur, “but they are no longer satisfied with the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament. They want me to win one of them. ”And who can say that couldn’t happen?
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