With steel in her eyes, Ons Jabeur turned to her box, her clenched fist raised. Determination, grit – sheer want – were etched in her features, her expression a world away from the happy-go-lucky purveyor of deft drop shots and quick one-liners that has long since won over the hearts of the Centre Court crowd.
Minutes earlier, Jabeur had trailed Aryna Sabalenka, the second seed and title favourite, by a set and 4-2, her mission to right the wrongs of Wimbledons past apparently destined to end in heartbreak. Now it was clear this semi-final was far from over.
From that moment on, Sabalenka won just three more games, Jabeur going on to claim a 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-3 victory and a chance to erase the memory of last summer’s agonising final defeat to Elena Rybakina once and for all.
Was it the finest win of the 28-year-old Tunisian’s career? Quite possibly, although it was hard to tell, given that the win came only a day after Jabeur’s barely less extraordinary victory over Rybakina. The Tunisian has been like an avenging angel at this Wimbledon. Having dished out payback to Rybakina and Sabalenka, her quarter-final conqueror of two years ago, only one more revenge mission stands between her and a first grand slam title. That will come against Marketa Vondrousova, a straight-sets winner over Elina Svitolina in the first semi-final, who has beaten Jabeur twice this year, at the Australian Open and in Indian Wells.
Yet it so nearly didn’t happen. In a match that followed an eerily similar pattern to her victory over Rybakina, against whom she fell behind after coming within a point of taking the opening set, Jabeur stormed into a 4-2 lead in the first-set tiebreak with a brilliant running forehand winner, only to relinquish the initiative.
Victory would not only have put Sabalenka through to the second major final of her career, following her victory at this year’s Australian Open, but also seen her overtake Iga Swiatek to become the new world No 1. And as the Belarusian continued to send down a blizzard of thunderous serves and groundstrokes to move within two games of her objective, that victory looked certain. Jabeur had other ideas.
“I just wanted to try to break her,” Jabeur said of her pivotal breakthrough in the seventh game of the second set. “It was very difficult for me to return her serve, especially if she was mixing a lot. Even the speed was difficult.
“I was like, ‘Honestly, I’m not going to give a shit, I’m just going to go in and hit my return.’ It was coming. I was returning much better.
“She missed some shots that helped me stay in the game. I was fighting for every point. I just waited for a little bit of a chance to get the game, and that’s what happened.”
The artistry of Jabeur’s tennis is such that the earthier aspects of her game are often overlooked. Many reports of her victory over Rybakina suggested she clinched the second set with an acrobatic flourish at the net. In fact, the ball had already been called out by then; the shot that won her the set was a thumping backhand return down the line. As Jabeur observed after that win, she can belt the ball with the best of them when occasion demands, and it was telling that, in another echo of her win over Rybakina, she drew level with Sabalenka courtesy of a similarly meaty backhand return winner.
“I felt like she played a little bit better than me in those key moments,” said Sabalenka. “Everything was going well for me. I just lost it a little bit in the second set, and it was just gone.
“She was going for crazy shots. I felt like she was doing whatever she wanted, and everything was going in.”
If that appraisal felt a bit like a case of the pot calling the kettle black, given the bruising power of Sabalenka’s own shot-making, it was nonetheless accurate. Down the stretch, Jabeur was inspired. She has given everything to bounce back from the heartbreak she experienced last year, when her loss at Wimbledon was followed by defeat to Swiatek in the US Open final, and as the finish line neared, her spirit and her game soared.
The decisive breakthrough came in the sixth game, where Sabalenka courageously fought off two break points with some huge serving only for a string of teasing slices from Jabeur to prise an error on a third. Jabeur would not look back. At 2-5, Sabalenka saved a match point with her 10th ace of the afternoon; one game later, Jabeur sealed victory with her third. After a difficult year and a difficult draw, the Tunisian stands on the brink of fulfilling a dream.
“I always believed,” said Jabeur. “Sometimes you would question and doubt if it’s going to happen, if it’s ever going to happen. Being in the last stages, I think it does help you believe more.
“I’m going to learn a lot from not only [last year’s] Wimbledon’s final but also the US Open final, and give it my best. Maybe this year was all about trying two times and getting it right the third time.”