Caroline Garcia qualified for the US Open for her first Grand Slam semi-final. In dazzling form since the beginning of the summer, the French will be opposed Thursday to the Tunisian Ons Jabeur, 5th in the world and finalist of the last Wimbledon.
As early as 2011, Andy Murray, then 4e worldwide, the Moon promised him. But Caroline Garcia took more than eleven years to “find the way” and finally climb, Tuesday, September 7 at the US Open, in the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament.
“The girl who plays against Sharapova will be world No.1 one day. Caroline Garcia, what a player! This is where you heard it first”, tweeted Murray on May 26, 2011. It was during a match of 2e round of Roland-Garros than the Frenchwoman, who still played mainly on the ITF circuit (3e division), had ended up losing after winning the first set.
Flattered on the spot, the Lyonnaise believes that this tweet has finally served her. “I was 17, I was 150e or 200e world and I was able to produce that level of play in one match, but not repeat it in other weeks. Me the first, I put pressure on myself by telling myself that I wanted to play like that again, but when you try to do it, it’s even worse”, she analyzes today.
Garcia has won seven tournaments until 2019, including the double at the WTA 1000 in Beijing and Wuhan in 2017, as well as the Fed Cup with France in 2019, and she reached the 4e world rank in 2018. But it remained far from the Scot’s forecasts.
A comeback for Garcia
Especially since physical glitches, while his aggressive game can only work with a 100% body, have led to psychological difficulties, and in particular a loss of confidence.
So much so that it fell back to 79e world ranking on May 23, almost at the same time as a right ankle injury forced her to retire in the first round in Miami.
But since her return to Roland-Garros, after a two-month hiatus, she has won a string of victories (31 out of 35 games played, including 13 consecutive counting the quarter against Gauff at Flushing Meadows), titles (Bad Homburg, Warsaw and Cincinnati), and qualified in New York for her first-ever Major semi-final. All while practicing the most impressive game on the board.
As a result, Garcia will return to the World Top 10 at the end of the tournament. “Your career is made up of ups and downs, but you have to accept everything. There are passages that have been painful, but we have managed to bounce back well”, philosophizes the interested party in the canon service. She is the player to have passed the most aces in five games at the US Open (30) and holds the record on the circuit this season (316).
Is that, since last December, she has changed her method. Bertrand Perret replaced his father as coach. He was able to restore her confidence and clarify in her head the type of game she must apply.
In New York, Caroline Garcia knocked out one after another Kamilla Rakhimova (90e mondiale), Anna Kalinskaya (60e), Bianca Andreescu (48e and 2019 winner), Alison Riske (29e) and Coco Gauff (12e), without losing a single set and not giving up more than 7 games per match.
A second Grand Slam final for Ons Jabeur?
In the semi-final, she will find on her way the Tunisian Ons Jabeur who also qualified for her first semi-final of the US Open by beating the Australian Ajla Tomljanovic on Tuesday (46e), Serena Williams’ faller at 3e tour, 6–4, 7–6 (7/4).
At 28, she will try Thursday to climb for the second time in her career in the final of a Grand Slam tournament. According to her, her first final played at Wimbledon this summer “gave her confidence”. “I lost, but I know since then that I am capable of winning a Grand Slam tournament,” said Jabeur, the first African player to reach the last four at Flushing Meadows in the Open era (since 1968 ). Until then, she had never exceeded the 3e turn in the New York Major.
In October 2021, she was the first female and male tennis player in the Arab world to reach the top 10 in the world. “This is only the beginning,” said the Tunisian, who frequently repeats her pride in representing “Arabs and Africa”.
Born on August 28, 1994 in Ksar Hellal, in the governorate of Monastir (eastern Tunisia), Ons Jabeur started playing tennis very early. Ten years later, after having taken part in national tournaments, the young tenniswoman, who already displayed the rage to win that drives her, joined the sports high school of El-Menzah, in Tunis, at the age of 13, and began to play on the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Junior World Tour.
In 2011, in the midst of the Tunisian revolution, the prodigy marked observers by winning the Roland-Garros junior tournament. Ons Jabeur becomes the first North African player to win a Grand Slam in this category.
Despite the sacrifices and his energy, his transition from juniors to professionals is complicated. She will confide that injuries and bad choices of coaches have long slowed down her progress and her ambition to reach the heights.
It’s only been two years that Ons Jabeur has displayed a regularity that allows him to stay at the top of the table on the professional circuit. Precisely since the Australian Open, in January 2020: then ranked 78e world, she only lost in the quarter-finals, against the American Sofia Kenin, future winner of the tournament.
Ons Jabeur is now nicknamed by Tunisians “Onstoppable”, a play on words between her first name and “unstoppable” – “unstoppable”, in English – and “the Minister of Happiness”. Caroline Garcia is warned.
With AFP
