Earlier this year, long after her unforgettable trailblazing run to her maiden grand slam final, Ons Jabeur was forced to relive the joy, hope and eventual pain of that fortnight once more. As she and her husband, Karim, watched the episode of Netflix’s Break Point that chronicled her run, they both cried.
The wounds were still fresh, the pain still with her; she would have to return this year to win it all.
True to her word, Jabeur has found her way back to the Wimbledon final with an immense showing of grit and self-belief. After trailing the best player in the world this year by a set and 2-4, the Tunisian again dug into the depths of her spirit and found the strength to recover. Jabeur, the sixth seed, returned to the final with an incredible 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-3 win over the world No 2, Aryna Sabalenka.
A year after becoming the first Arab player and the first African woman to reach a grand slam singles final, at Wimbledon, she will again play for her first major title as she faces Marketa Vondrousova in Saturday’s final. After also reaching last year’s US Open final, it will be the 28-year-old’s third grand slam final in the last five events.
“I’m very proud of myself because maybe old me would have lost the match and went back home already. I’m glad that I kept digging very deep and finding the strength,” said Jabeur.
Sabalenka, meanwhile, had arrived on Centre Court a win away from usurping Iga Swiatek to become the new world No 1. Instead she suffered a second grand slam semi-final collapse in two months after her brutal loss to Karolina Muchova at the French Open. “I’ll just keep working, keep pushing myself. Hopefully next time mentally I’ll be tougher in the semi-finals,” said Sabalenka.
While last year’s Wimbledon had presented a great opportunity for Jabeur, with her defeating no top 30 opponents en route to the final, she returned to the All England Club having been handed perhaps the toughest draw possible with three title fancies in her way.
After edging past Bianca Andreescu in three sets, Jabeur demolished an in-form Petra Kvitova, the two-time Wimbledon champion, in round four. Against Elena Rybakina, a quarter-final rematch of last year’s final, she played perhaps the best match of her life. Her reward for such a tough run was a fourth grand slam champion and the toughest of them all.
Still, Jabeur picked up where she left off, striking the ball smoothly while taking every opportunity to attack one of the biggest hitters in the world. She made Sabalenka so uncomfortable throughout the first set, steering her around the court with her forehand while constantly forcing the tall Belarusian to bend low and move forward in order to cope with her excellent slice.
Each time Sabalenka was under pressure in the first set, she responded. She found enormous serves at key moments, and hit herself out of trouble. After taking the tie‑break from 2-4 down, Sabalenka held a 4-2 lead in the second set.
As she tried to retrieve the break, Jabeur’s desperation became increasingly clear. She continued to impose herself with her forehand, she found a groove on her return of serve and, under pressure, Sabalenka errors began to flow. From 2-4 down, Jabeur breezed through the final four games to force a third set.
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Skupski and Koolhof reach men’s doubles final
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In the past couple of years, Neal Skupski has made a name for himself as a mixed doubles specialist, having won the title here in 2021 and 2022, partnering the American, Desirae Krawczyk. What he wants now is to get is hands on the men’s title and on Thursday he put himself within one win of doing it as he and Wesley Koolhof, his Dutch partner, beat Matt Ebden, half of last year’s winning pairing, and Rohan Bopanna of India 7-5, 6-4. The top seeds will play Marcel Granollers of Spain and the Argentinian Horacio Zeballos in the final.
Skupski is the first Briton, excluding wheelchair participants, to reach a final in three straight years at Wimbledon since Dorothy Round in 1937. “It’s always nice to have a Brit in at the end of the tournament at Wimbledon,” he said. “It’s been luckily myself the last couple of years with the mixed doubles. But this is the one we want. It’s the one we’ve been training for. This is for me the pinnacle achievement if we were able to get over the line. But there’s still a tough match ahead of us.”
As streaks go, this one is going to take some beating. The British men’s wheelchair doubles pairing of Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid duly reached their 16th consecutive grand slam final together on Thursday as they beat Gustavo Fernández of Argentina and Martín de la Puente of Spain 7-5, 6-3.
In another illustration of just why they have established themselves as the world’s best doubles pair – in any discipline – the No 1 seeds won a tight first set and then eased through the second to put themselves one win away from a fifth Wimbledon title together. They will play Japan’s Takuya Miki and Tokito Oda in the final. Simon Cambers
“It was very difficult for me to return her serve,” said Jabeur. “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.’”
The momentum carried into the final set, with Jabeur serving brilliantly and playing clear-minded attacking tennis as she held comfortably before taking the decisive break after a long, tense game at 3-2. With the finish line suddenly in sight, Jabeur served out the match to clinch the biggest win of her career.
After starting the year with hopes of consolidating a breakout 2022 season in which she reached No 2, this had been a tough season for Jabeur with numerous injuries, including knee surgery, halting her progress. But still, even though she has been unable to perform at her top level at times, this season has followed the story of her career: her success has been a product of gradual, consistent growth for more than a decade.
“Maybe the injuries did slow me down and teach me to be patient and accept what’s going on,” she said.
Despite her two grand slam finals in the past 53 weeks, Jabeur has never played as well as she has over the past 11 days. The mental strength and fighting spirit she has shown in these intense, suffocating tussles against the best players in the world seems even greater than last year and those qualities have taken her transcendent talents to new levels. She will be the favourite to win her first grand slam title.
“I want to make my path worth it, winning [against] all these grand slam champions to be in the final,” she said. “Yeah, I’m going full in, and hopefully this time it will work.”
