IOns Jabeur retained her strongest scene until the end. The Tunisian, who had just reached a Wimbledon final as the first African woman, did not want to be celebrated by the audience alone, but pulled Tatjana Maria back onto the pitch. Side by side they waved to the crowd and Jabeur applauded her defeated opponent like everyone else on Center Court on Thursday afternoon.
“I wanted to share the moment with her,” said the favored second in the world rankings after her 6-2, 3-6 and 6-1 semi-final victory over the German: “She is an inspiration for me and many players. I can’t believe she made a comeback like that.” Maria left the pitch 15 months after the birth of her second daughter as beaming as one can get after a loss. “The mother of all comebacks”, as the English newspaper “Daily Mail” wrote, had come to an end in sport.
With Ons Jabeur, on the other hand, this season’s outstanding grass court player will make it into the final of the London women’s competition. The 27-year-old won the Wimbledon preparatory tournament in Berlin and has been undefeated in eleven matches on the green. In general, Jabeur has won 21 of her last 23 matches and is the most successful player of the year alongside the Polish world number one Iga Swiatek.
“It’s a dream that’s about to come true,” said the “Minister of Happiness”, as she is known in her home country, after reaching the final after 1:43 hours of play. In the final she will face Kazakh Elena Rybakina, who defeated Romanian Simona Halep in two sets (6:3, 6:3) in the second semi-final.
A match like a friendly game
Maria and Jabeur were a long way from showing their best tennis in their first Grand Slam semifinals. In the first set, the match sometimes seemed like a friendly game in an ambivalent sense. Both the second in the world rankings and the Germans, 101 places behind them, acted inhibited, played the balls with backspin when in doubt, instead of looking for the point gain.
It seemed as if the self-proclaimed “barbecue buddies”, who also do a lot together off the tennis court, didn’t want to hurt each other. Because Jabeur played a bit braver in the first set and Maria in the second set, a third set had to decide. Unlike in three of the previous rounds, the 34-year-old German was unable to do anything this time to convert a deficit into a win.
