LONDON: In the Wimbledon Women’s singles semi-final match on Thursday, Tunisian tennis player Ons Jabeur defeated Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka. Jabeur will be up against Czech tennis player Marketa Vondrousova in the final on Saturday. After the win, Ons Jabeur said, ‘I’m going for my revenge’.
Ons Jabeur is back in the Wimbledon final, and she did it the hard way. Two games from defeat, the No.6 seed rallied for a 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3 win over No.2 seed Aryna Sabalenka on Centre Court to book a place in her third career Grand Slam final and second straight at the All England Club.
According to the official website of WTA, Ons Jabeur said, “I’m going for my revenge. I didn’t win against her this year. She has good hands. She plays very good. Honestly, I will try to focus on myself a lot. I’m not sure how she’s going to play second Grand Slam final, I believe. We both hungry to win. Whoever deserve it more will win.”
She added, “For me, I’m going to learn a lot from not only Wimbledon’s final but also US Open final and give it my best, Maybe this year was all about trying two times and getting it right the third time. So let’s see.”
While describing her semi-final match against Aryna Sabalenka, Jabeur said, “For me it was just one serve, one game. I just wanted to try to break her. It was very difficult for me to return her service. Especially if she was mixing a lot. Even the speed was difficult. I was like, honestly … I’m just going to go in and hit my return. It was coming. I was returning much better.”
“She missed some shots that did help me stay in the game. I was fighting every point. We just wait for a little bit of chance sometime to get the game, and that’s what happened.”
The 28-year-old Tunisian player becomes the first woman to reach back-to-back Wimbledon Finals since American Serena Williams in 2018-19.
In the 2022 Wimbledon final, Ons Jabeur failed to clinch her maiden Grand Slam and was defeated by Kazakhstani tennis player Elena Rybakina. This year, Ons Jabeur got her revenge as he knocked out Elena Rybakina in the quarter-finals of the tournament, 7-6, 6-4, 6-1.
In the semi-final match, Sabalenka led by a set and a break at 7-6(5), 4-2, having come from 4-2 down in the first-set tiebreak.
But Jabeur erased two chances Sabalenka had for 5-3, before breaking her serve for the first time all match, to get herself back in the contest. She won four straight games in the middle set and broke Sabalenka in the sixth game of the decider, to turn the match all the way around.
She needed five match points to seal the victory. Sabalenka saved two on her serve in the eighth game, and after two more passed Jabeur by from 40-0 up in the last game, she hammered down an ace to seal the win in 2 hours and 19 minutes. (ANI)