Ons Jabeur will take on Marketa Vondrousova in the women’s singles final on Saturday at Wimbledon. The sixth seed upset second seed and overwhelming favourite Aryna Sabalenka 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3 in their semi-final on Thursday evening. Jabeur needed two hours and 19 minutes to get the win.
The Tunisian’s way in the semi-final unfolded quite similarly as her quarter-final against Elena Rybakina on Wednesday. Back in that match, Jabeur had lost the first set in the tie-break by the same 7-5 score before capturing the latter two sets, 6-4, 6-1. However, while Rybakina was the player who took advantage of Jabeur’s serve to go up a break twice in the first set, Sabalenka wasn’t even able to get to deuce on her serve for the most parts. Only in the second game of the set did Jabeur face a break point but an unforced error from Sabalenka erased it just as quickly as it’d emerged.
Wimbledon: Ons Jabeur’s focused game-plan
As much as Jabeur dominated on her serve, she also dominated on return as almost every other service game of Sabalenka’s was pushed to deuce. She also faced three break points across the 12 service games she played although she did well to save the lot. Eventually, in the tie-break Jabeur led 4-2 with a mini-break but Sabalenka bounced back to turn the set around.
Sabalenka’s momentum lasted till the eighth game of the second set when trying to serve for a 5-3 lead over her opponent, her serve and game broke down completely. After having broken Jabeur in the fifth game in what was the first break of serve of the match, Sabalenka handed the break back in the eighth game. The 28-year-old consolidated the break in the ninth game after saving a break back and thereafter, she didn’t look back in the match, let alone drop her serve again. A second break of Sabalenka’s serve in the 10th game gave Jabeur the much-needed leg-up to re-enter the match.
In the deciding set, Sabalenka dropped her serve on the third break point she faced and Jabeur maintained the lead long enough to serve out the match to 30 in the ninth game of the set.
The world no. 2 finished the match with more winners and unforced errors than her opponent. She had 39 winners to Jabeur’s 28 and 45 unforced errors to the latter’s 14.
Meanwhile, Ons Jabeur’s the first player in eight years to reach two straight Wimbledon finals. Back in 2015 and 2016, Serena Williams went on to reach the final and lifted the trophy.
Photo Credit: Ons Jabeur Twitter