Beautiful tennis, played in a beautiful spirit, with a beautiful ending.
As Ons Jabeur achieved the biggest win of her life, defeating her close friend Tatjana Maria 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 to reach the Wimbledon final, her first thought was for the German mother of two whose progress to the semi-finals has been one of the stories of the past fortnight.
Having shared a warm embrace and a few quiet words of solace with Maria at the net, Jabeur grabbed her “barbecue buddy” by the arm and led her back on to court, pointing to the 34-year-old as she joined in with the applause that rained down from the Centre Court stands.
“I definitely wanted to share the moment with Tatjana at the end, because she is such an inspiration for so many players, including me, coming back after two babies,” Jabeur told the crowd. “I still can’t believe how she did it.”
“She deserves a lot of respect, Tatjana, making the first time semi-final, the way she plays, the way she fights,” the 27-year-old later added in press. “If I didn’t see her two kids, I would say she never had the kids. It’s really amazing how she moves on the court, it’s really inspiring for a lot of women.”
Jabeur, who has inspired a people, a country and a continent, knows whereof she speaks. The Tunisian world No 2 has long been a trailblazer for Arab and African women, establishing a host of historic landmarks. She is the first Arab player, male or female, to break the world’s top 10, and became the first to progress beyond a grand slam quarter-final with her win over Marie Bouzkova.
Now she is the first African woman to reach a major final since Sandra Reynolds, the South African beaten by Maria Bueno in the 1960 final. Jabeur, who will face Elena Rybakina in Saturday’s final after the 17th-seeded Kazakh defeated Simona Halep 6-3, 6-3, has embraced her figurehead status. “An amazing role model,” Maria called her afterwards. That much is indisputable – and she is not done yet.
“I want to go bigger, inspire many more generations,” she said. “Tunisia is connected to the Arab world, is connected to the African continent. That area, we want to see more players, you know, it’s not like Europe. I want to see more players from my country, from the Middle East, from Africa. I think we didn’t believe enough at certain points that we can do it. Now I’m just trying to show that, and hopefully people are getting inspired.”
The Centre Court crowd were certainly galvanised. How richly the pair deserved the standing ovation they received. For an hour and 43 minutes, they produced tennis that was quite literally out of this world, harking back to a bygone age when the game was about artistry and nuance rather than raw, bludgeoning power. It was a joyful exhibition, full of spins, grins and mind-bending geometry that left no angle or area of the court unexplored.
Think of a shot that can be hit on a tennis court, and this match had it. Dinks and drop shots, weighty drives and artful lobs, they were all here – and that was just in the brilliant opening game, a five-deuce feast for the senses finally won by Maria as she held after eight absorbing minutes.
Whatever antics Nick Kyrgios may get up to in the days ahead, the Australian will do nothing that comes close to the outrageousness on display here. At one stage, Jabeur reached back to retrieve a ball that was already past her, pulling off a drop half-volley of such bewitching virtuosity that even she didn’t know where it would end up. As the Tunisian performed an impromptu pirouette, Maria came dashing forward to slice the ball back across the face of the net, finding an angle so acute that even Jabeur was bamboozled into error.
Later, Jabeur punctuated a cat-and-mouse exchange of angles with an audacious flicked forehand off another ball that seemed to have passed her by. On and on they went, Maria angling away an elegant drop volley only for Jabeur to materialise at the last possible instant, skidding and stretching, to conjure an unreachable dink with an audacious flick of the wrist.
Statistics felt redundant in the face of such artistry, and sure enough the numbers were misleading. They showed that Jabeur made 30 unforced errors, Maria three fewer. Crucially, however, only three of the Tunisian’s mistakes came in the final set. By that time, Jabeur had come to terms with the awkward nature of her opponent’s game, which ironically posed her the same kind of difficulties she is used to inflicting on others.
Able to make her greater weight of shot tell in the first set, Jabeur struggled to contain a rampant Maria in the second. As the German’s sliced forehands skidded ever faster through the court, so Jabeur’s feet and racket-head speed slowed. Mishits became frequent, errors – both forced and unforced – even more so. But as the third set began, Jabeur raised her level, sealing a love hold with a trademark flying backhand before breaking in the next game with a flicked forehand pass. She would not be caught.
1 comment
Such great report of a very tricky match.
I’m so proud of both of them.
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