It has been a fraught start to her first campaign at the WTA Finals, but Ons Jabeur is finally doing what she does best: giving free rein to her virtuosity, trusting her creative instincts, spreading joy. Tunisia’s unofficial Minister of Happiness is smiling again.
After narrowly missing out on qualification last year, Jabeur arrived in Fort Worth intent on making up for lost time at an event she has long dreamed of playing. Things didn’t quite go to plan for the 28-year-old in her opener against Aryna Sabalenka, where she was undone in a topsy-turvy decider after coming within two points of a straight-sets victory. By her own admission, the result left her in a dark place, full of “anger and disappointment”.
“Honestly, it was very tough,” said the second-seeded Jabeur, “because I’m used to being depressed for the next two days when I lose. I didn’t have much time. It was very hard to sleep the first day.”
The defeat, which left Jabeur trailing Sabalenka and Maria Sakkari in Nancy Richey Group, brought obvious urgency to her meeting with Jessica Pegula. For a set, though, she appeared to be on course for further heartache. That she recovered to claim a 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory owed everything to a belated resolve to play to her strengths rather than simply trying to hit through the American third seed.
“I felt like I was serving good [in] the first set, but she was returning very well,” said Jabeur. “It’s pretty disappointing for someone that hits hard [when] the ball just comes back even harder, so I changed up the rhythm in my serve, I was just trying to place more the serve.
“I was just trying, you know, to have that click in the second set. Less unforced errors with the forehand, for sure, and I think the forehand down the line helped a lot to open up the court for me. I definitely just went more for my shots and tried to impose more my game, slicing a little bit and just changing up the rhythm so she didn’t go super fast, as she did in the first set.”
The expectation had been that Jabeur’s skidding slice backhands and delicate drop shots would be tailor-made for the slow conditions. Pegula was alive to the danger – “She’s just super tricky to play, she’s kind of unorthodox, a lot of slice, and I think it probably will work pretty well on these courts with them being really low bouncing,” the American said beforehand – and set out to counter Jabeur by injecting greater pace into her baseline game.
When Pegula reeled off seven of the first eight games, her approach looked almost certain to reap dividends. But as Jabeur’s began to find her touch and the games became closer, it was the Tunisian’s ability to navigate the key points that proved decisive. That was never more apparent than at the start of the final set, where Jabeur recovered from 0-40 to win a game of five deuces with a mercurial combination of power and finesse.
“It was just like my first match, it was like a few points,” said Jabeur. “I feel like this whole tournament is all about who’s going to seize those points, who’s going to seize those opportunities to be able to win, because you never know.
“For example, I lost my first match, but now I’m back in the game [with] one more match left.
“You don’t have a lot of chances… So you really have to focus.”
Sakkari was certainly focused in the second singles match of the day, advancing to the semi-finals for the second year in a row with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Aryna Sabalenka. It leaves the group precariously poised, with even Pegula still able to go through if she beats Sabalenka in straight sets on Friday and Sakkari does the same against Jabeur. It has been a wretched debut for the American, who has lost all four of her matches so far in singles and doubles.
“I take back what I said about the format not really mattering,” said Pegula. “After losing four times in like three days, it definitely kind of sucks more than when you have a week to reset in between tournaments.”