Tunisian Ons Jabeur becomes first Arab woman to reach Wimbledon quarterfinals
Ons Jabeur’s historic Wimbledon campaign saw her reach the women’s quarterfinals on Monday, beating Poland’s 2020 French Open champion Iga Swiatek 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 in their fourth round match.
The 26-year-old is the first Tunisian and Arab woman to reach the last eight at Wimbledon and will face Belarus second seed Aryna Sabalenka who defeated Elena Rybakina 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.
Sabalenka will be playing in her first Grand Slam quarterfinal.
Jabeur showed great poise to stay in the match after she let slip a 5-4 lead and serving for the first set only for the Pole to reel off three games on the bounce.
Swiatek, after a flat opening, had taken note of a young Polish fan holding up a board inscribed ‘Jazda Iga’ (‘Come on Iga’).
“It was a great match and I had to stay calm rather than get angry when I failed to close out the first set as getting angry would not have helped my cause,” said Jabeur.
“Today I decided to change my game a bit as everyone knows I am doing drop shots and being aggressive was key today.”
Jabeur never looked back once she had got over the loss of the first set.
Her breaking her 20-year-old opponent in the first game of the second set set the tone for the rest of the encounter.
Indeed such was her dominance that Swiatek at one point having been out-witted by a Jabeur drop shot smashed the top of the net angrily with her racket.