What a dismantling: Ons Jabeur eats breakfast at the Wimbledon tennis tournament in 63 minutes and goes on a historic hunt for prey. The Tunisian shoulders an entire continent – and steals Boris Becker’s living room.
Barbary lions in the wild are extinct. They only exist in exile in zoos. The mighty animals, the largest subspecies of lions, once ruled over large regions of North Africa. From Egypt and Libya to Algeria and Morocco – to Tunisia. But one lioness survived. But she is no longer at home in Tunisia, but in arenas all over the world. And her booty could hardly be bigger: the Tunisian Ons Jabeur wants to be tennis queen and is chasing a historic success in Wimbledon. A triumph for which the 28-year-old piggybacked an entire continent.
Acrobatic: Jabeur can also do it with his foot.
(Photo: IMAGO/Shutterstock)
27 minutes. You don’t have to write more about the first sentence itself. At the same time that other tennis games are sometimes still stuck in the third service game, Ons Jabeur puts her opponent Petra Kvitova in her place with such dominance that even the strongest Berber lions from the Sinai Peninsula to Rabat would have been amazed. All the fans in the stands on Center Court know right from the start: Today there is only one winner. She is from Tunisia. And she has a mission: to finally take the big step and win a Grand Slam tournament. For themselves. for their country. For their continent. For the Arab world.
In the end it is a disassembly. Same at the beginning though. Jabeur wins 6:0, 6:3 and moves into the round of the last eight in the grass classic. Not against anyone, but against Kvitova, a two-time Grand Slam winner, who is ninth at the tournament in London and most recently won the tournament in Berlin and the Miami Open in early April. The Czech had also won four of the five previous direct encounters. But now Jabeur makes a sign like a lion’s roar.
Emotional like Zidane
27 minutes in which Jabeur is better in all areas. Kvitova finds no remedy at all. The spectators at the most important and largest tennis tournament in the world are amazed. Again and again a murmur goes through the audience. “When you win against someone like Petra 6-0, you have to expect to be beaten 6-0 in the next set, so I tried to tell myself that the match starts in the second set,” said the Tunisian afterwards . “I just kept going, trying to play point by point. To be honest, it was going really well for me.”
The last sentence sums it up: Exhausted and upset, the Czech doyen leaves the court after the debacle in the first sentence. During the break, Jabeur sits on her bench, focused and introverted, staring straight ahead. On target, on the prey. Suddenly, all the lioness, she jumps up abruptly, her opponent is far from back on the court. But the 28-year-old uses her racket to make room for the air. All of her body language shows that she’s not going to miss a beat here. That they rule like their animal namesakes once did, the last of whom were shot in Tunisia in 1922.
But the break was good for Kvitova. She quickly makes it 1-0, and a primal scream follows. But Jabeur is not only good at dominance. Of course, the lioness can also scratch, bite and fight. She jogs to the bench, takes a sip, grabs the balls for the serve – and within a minute she is 1-1. A world-class return with the backhand follows, plus a mistake by Kvitova – Jabeur manages the first break in the second set to make it 2-1.
Again and again she clenches her fist on important points, wants to bring this home quickly and doesn’t even give her opponent the chance to stand up. Kvitova, on the other hand, lets her shoulders sag because she simply cannot find a remedy against the Tunisian’s aggressive backhand strokes and powerful serves – against the superiority of the overall package, which is rare in women’s tennis. Jabeur, in her typical manner, even has time to cause laughter and applause when she volleys a ball that has tumbled out of bounds with her foot in a way that Zinédine Zidane could hardly have conjured up more sensitively on the football field. The fans love her for it, calls in Arabic and French echo through the round again and again.
Jabeur – inspiration and role model
Next, the 167-centimetre-tall powerhouse hits a Rafael Nadal forehand mark on the green, which shakes his head in disbelief. 4:1, another break. Almost 50 minutes are played and the thing is done. Kvitova’s only break to 2:4 cannot change that. Jabeur responds with a return that would make Novak Djokovic, known as the king of the second leg, jealous – and quickly turns the match point into victory after 1:03 hours. This makes her the first tennis player in nine years to reach the quarter-finals at Wimbledon three times in a row. Most recently, Kvitova succeeded in doing this (five years in a row, 2010 to 2014) and Sabine Lisicki (2011 to 2014).
Jabeur has come to Wimbledon to finish what she started last year. Then she was second, this time there should be one more win. But it’s also much more than just another tournament for the Tunisian. Much more than a tennis player trying to win a Grand Slam title. She is on a mission for the Arab world and for all of Africa. She emphasizes this again and again. Because never before has a tennis player from these regions been able to win one of the four major tennis tournaments.
Jabeur is also aware that she is an inspiration to many talented young players from her country and continent. “I think we have a lot of talented players,” she said these days. “It’s a pity we don’t see them here at the Grand Slams, in Wimbledon. I know that’s what they dream of. I hope to be able to share my experience and give them advice if they want to become professional tennis players.”
The tennis player has long been a role model for Africans, for all kinds of people from Arab countries, none of whom have anything to do with the sport. At the beginning of March, she sided with migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, against whom the President of Tunisia had previously etched. “Today is Zero Discrimination Day,” Jabeur wrote on Twitter. “As a proud Tunisian, Arab and African, I celebrate everyone’s right to live with dignity.”
Becker’s living room becomes Jabeur’s hunting ground
so much pressure Such high expectations. Can one person shoulder an entire continent? Jabeur is not having an easy year. In January, she was knocked out in the second round of the Australian Open in Melbourne and then struggled with injuries for much of the season. She returned to a good level at the French Open but failed in the quarterfinals. In Berlin she could not defend her title, but was knocked out in the first round by Jule Niemeier.
But the Holy Lawn suits her. What was once Boris Becker’s living room is increasingly becoming Jabeur’s playroom. your hunting ground. The Chinese Bai Zhouxuan eats her breakfast in the second round even faster than Kvitova, it only takes 45 minutes. Now the coup against the Czech, to which three more episodes are to follow.
The 28-year-old has been on the tour for a long time and has constantly improved. Her way to the top was hard and rocky, Tunisia is really not a tennis country. When she was growing up, there were no tennis academies or even public courts anywhere. Jabeur went to hotels to train.
“She’s a role model and whether you’re a tennis player or a tennis fan, you’re inspired by Ons Jabeur.” Seven-time Grand Slam champion Mats Wilander spoke this sentence during Wimbledon 2022. A year later, Jabeur wants more. The last lioness wants to inspire with the historic victory.