Ons Jabeur

Ons Jabeur (born 28 August 1994) is a Tunisian inactive professional tennis player. She has a career-high singles ranking by the WTA of No. 2, achieved on 27 June 2022, making her the highest-ranked African and Arab tennis player in WTA and ATP rankings' history. Jabeur has won five singles titles on WTA Tour, including a WTA 1000 event at the 2022 Madrid Open, and has been runner-up at three majors. She is the first African and Arab woman to contest a major singles final.

Jabeur was first exposed to tennis by her mother at three years old. She became professional in her teenage years when she reached two junior major girls' singles finals at the French Open in 2010 and 2011, winning the latter and becoming the first African or Arab to win a junior major since 1964. After nearly a decade of playing primarily at the ITF level, she started competing more regularly on the WTA Tour in 2017. At the 2020 Australian Open, Jabeur became the first Arab woman to reach a major quarterfinal, a feat she repeated at the 2021 Wimbledon Championships. She became the first Arab woman to win a WTA Tour title at the 2021 Birmingham Classic. Jabeur then elevated her level in the summer of 2022, winning the 2022 Madrid Open for her biggest title, followed by two successive major finals at Wimbledon and the US Open. Reaching the world No. 2 position, she reached the Wimbledon final again the next year, before injury and form struggles led to declining results.

Jabeur's achievements are credited with raising the profile of tennis across the African continent. She won the Arab Woman of the Year award in 2019.

Early life

Ons Jabeur was born to Samira and Ridha Jabeur in Ksar Hellal, a small town in Tunisia, on 28 August 1994. She grew up in the larger nearby coastal city of Sousse. Jabeur has two older brothers, Hatem and Marwen, and an older sister, Yasmine. Her mother played tennis recreationally and introduced her to the sport at the age of three. Jabeur trained under coach Nabil Mlika for ten years from ages four to thirteen, originally starting to work with him at a tennis promotion centre at her school. When she was ten years old, her club did not have its own tennis courts and she could only train on courts at nearby hotels. At twelve years old, Jabeur moved to the capital city of Tunis to train at the Lycée Sportif El Menzah, a national sport high school for the country's up-and-coming athletes, where she stayed for several years.

She also later trained in Belgium and France starting at the age of 16. Jabeur credits her parents for the sacrifices they made while raising her, saying, "My parents sacrificed a lot of things – my mom used to drive me everywhere around Tunisia to go play the tournaments, and she encouraged me to go to a special school to study. That was a big sacrifice to see her little girl going for a dream that, honestly, wasn't 100% guaranteed. She believed in me and gave me the confidence to be there."

Career

Junior years

Jabeur began playing on the ITF Junior Circuit in August 2007 on the week of her 13th birthday. With compatriot Nour Abbès, she won the doubles event of her debut tournament, the Grade 5 Al Fatah ITF Junior Tournament in Lebanon. She defeated Abbès to win her first Grade 5 singles event at the 2009 Fujairah ITF Junior Tennis Championships in the United Arab Emirates, where she also won the doubles event with Abbès. Later in the year, she started to have more success at higher-level tournaments, finishing runner-up at the Grade 2 International Junior Championships of Morocco and winning the Grade 2 Smash International Junior Championships in Egypt, both in singles. She made her junior major debut at the 2009 US Open, losing her opening match to Laura Robson.

Jabeur started to produce strong results at the junior majors and other Grade A events in May 2010. In the doubles event at the Trofeo Bonfiglio, she partnered with Charlène Seateun to reach the semifinals. Two weeks later, she played the 2010 French Open and upset third seed Irina Khromacheva in the semifinals before finishing runner-up to Elina Svitolina. She also performed well at Wimbledon, reaching the quarterfinals in singles and the semifinal in doubles. She lost to Yulia Putintseva in singles, and Khromacheva and Svitolina in doubles alongside Monica Puig. Putintseva defeated Jabeur again at the US Open. Jabeur entered the doubles event with Putintseva and lost in the quarterfinals to Khromacheva again, who had partnered with Daria Gavrilova. Following the US Open, Jabeur had left wrist surgery in November that kept her out for five months until April 2011.

The last two singles events of Jabeur's junior career were the 2011 French Open and the 2011 Wimbledon Championships. At the French Open, she won her only junior major title to become the first North African woman to win a junior Grand Slam tournament. As the ninth seed, she upset top seed Daria Gavrilova in the quarterfinals, third seed Caroline Garcia in the semifinals, and then fifth seed Monica Puig in the final. This title helped her rise to No. 4 in the world in the junior rankings. She also became the first Arab girl to win a junior major singles title in history, and the first junior in general since Ismail El Shafei won the Wimbledon boys' title in 1964. Jabeur also entered the doubles event at the Grade 1 Junior International Roehampton, which she won while partnering with Ashleigh Barty.

2008–12: Professional & WTA Tour debut

Jabeur began playing on the ITF Women's Circuit in 2008 at the age of 14. In October 2009, she finished runner-up in both singles and doubles at a 10k tournament in Monastir near her hometown, losing to Elise Tamaëla in both events. She won her first title in singles in May 2010 in Antalya, Turkey. She then won the singles and doubles events at another 10k tournament in Casablanca, Morocco two months later.

After having left wrist surgery at the end of the year and winning a junior major title, Jabeur moved up to the 25k and 50k levels in the summer of 2011. She made her WTA Tour main-draw debut at the age of 17 as a wildcard at the Premier 5 Qatar Ladies Open in February 2012, where she lost her first career match to No. 103 Virginie Razzano, in three sets. She was also given a wildcard into the qualifying competition at the Dubai Tennis Championships the following week. Although she did not qualify, she upset world No. 33 Zheng Jie with a ranking of No. 1169. Jabeur did not have much success at the ITF Circuit in 2012, only reaching one final, which came in singles and was her first at the $25k level. She also entered qualifying at the French Open, but only won one match. Jabeur finished the year ranked No. 260 in the world.

2013–16: Top 200 at the ITF Circuit level

After a slow start to 2013, 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. In July, Jabeur played in her second WTA tournament main draw at the Baku Cup. She upset top seed, defending champion, and world No. 37, Bojana Jovanovski, in the second round before losing in the quarterfinals to Magda Linette. She entered the qualifying competitions at Wimbledon and the US Open, losing her opening match in both events. A third 50k title at the Saguenay Challenger with a win in the final over CoCo Vandeweghe took her to a new career-high of 139. In 2014, she played the main draw in the Malaysian Open losing to Giulia Gatto-Monticone in the first round.

Jabeur stayed inside the top 200 for most of the next three years, but could not enter the top 100, reaching a career-best ranking of 118 in 2015. She continued to play a mix of ITF and WTA events but played primarily at the ITF level. Her only ITF title in 2014 came at a 25k event in Tunis, and she did not win any titles in 2015. She finished runner-up twice in 2014, with the higher-level result coming at the $50k Open Nantes Atlantique, losing to Kateřina Siniaková. After losing in qualifying at the French Open and Wimbledon, Jabeur qualified for two major main draws in a row at the 2014 US Open and the 2015 Australian Open. She lost her opening matches at both tournaments to No. 19 Andrea Petkovic and Vera Zvonareva, respectively. With no titles, finals, or semifinals in 2015, her year-end ranking dropped to No. 210. Jabeur rebounded with two $25k titles in January 2016. A $50k title at the Nana Trophy in Tunis helped her return to the top 200 for all but one week through the rest of the season. Nonetheless, she lost in qualifying at both Wimbledon and the US Open and did not have a strong second half of the season. She finished the year at No. 193.