Russian-born Elena Rybakina powered back to win the Wimbledon title 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 on Saturday, denying Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur a chance to make African tennis history.
World number two Jabeur was in charge at the start of the match but the 17th seed, representing Kazakhstan, regrouped and dropped just four more games on the way to sealing her first Grand Slam title.
Jabeur is the current No. 1 Tunisian player, and the highest-ranked African and Arab tennis player in ATP and WTA rankings history, according to Tennis.com.
Jabeur was first introduced to tennis at age three by her mother.
Jabeur began playing on the ITF Women’s Circuit in 2008 at the age of 14.
She won her first title at the $10K level in singles in May 2010 in Antalya, Turkey.
After a slow start to 2013, Ons Jabeur won her first $25K title in April 2013 in Tunis. She then won back-to-back $50K titles over An-Sophie Mestach in Japan in May to bring her into the top 200 for the first time.
After losing in qualifying at the French Open and Wimbledon, Jabeur qualified for two Grand Slam main draws in a row at the 2014 US Open and the 2015 Australian Open.
Jabeur participated in all four Grand Slam singles events in 2017 for the first time. After losing in the last round of qualifying at the Australian Open, she reached the French Open main draw as a lucky loser, the Wimbledon main draw as a qualifier, and the US Open main draw as a direct acceptance.
Jabeur had a major breakthrough at the Australian Open. After defeating Johanna Konta and Caroline Garcia in the first two rounds, she beat Caroline Wozniacki in three sets in the last match of Wozniacki’s career.
At the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, she reached her second consecutive Wimbledon quarterfinal, defeating Mirjam Björklund, Katarzyna Kawa, Diane Parry and 24th seed Elise Mertens. Then she reached her first Grand Slam semifinals, defeating Marie Bouzková in the quarterfinal and becoming the first Arab or North African woman to ever reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam. After that, she defeated Tatjana Maria in the semifinals to reach her maiden Grand Slam final.
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