Ons Jabeur defeated Aryna Sabalenka and for the second year in a row will play in the final of the third Grand Slam tournament of the year – Wimbledon. The 6th-seeded Tunisian tennis player beat the 2nd-seeded Belarusian by 2-1 (6:7, 6:4, 6:3) in 2:22 hours of play.
The defeat deprived the 2nd-seeded Sabalenka of the opportunity to top the WTA world rankings.
Ons Jabeur lost to Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina last year and will now try to win the title in a match against Czech Marketa Vondrousova, who earlier defeated Elina Svitolina (Ukraine) by 2-0 (6:3, 6:3).
Ons Jabeur showed managed to turn the game around and a difficult position. The Tunisian lost the first set after a tiebreak, and in the second she was delaying in score by 2:4, but then she won 10 of the remaining 13 games and triumphed.
In the first set, both won their serves and there was no breaks, and only in the tiebreak did Aryna Sabalenka take the advantage and won by 7-5.
Aryna Sabalenka was the first to reach a break and lead 4:2 in the second set, but Ons Jabeur returned the break, equalizing to 4:4, and then again broke her opponent’s serve and leveled the sets after 6:4.
This gave a psychological advantage to the Tunisian, who in the decisive third set dominated and closed the match for 6:3 with her fifth match point.
