Ons Jabeur becomes first African woman to be in US Open Final

Ons Jabeur (Google Images)

Ons Jabeur of Ksar Hellal, Tunisia made tennis history on Thursday by becoming the first African woman to reach a United States Open Final according to aljazeera.com. Jabeur, the fifth seed, beat the 17th seed Caroline Garcia of France, 6-1, 6-3.

This will be the second grand slam final for Jabeur in her career. In July, Jabeur reached the women’s final of Wimbledon, before losing 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 to Elena Raybakina of Kazakhstan.

In the women’s semifinal, Jabeur broke Garcia on all four of her break point opportunities. Garcia meanwhile had zero break point chances. Jabeur also had eight aces, compared to only two for Garcia.

Garcia came out significantly flat. She only looked like the fraction of the player who had won Cincinnati earlier this summer, and the player who had clobbered 2019 U.S. Open champion Bianca Andresscu of Canada in the third round, and Americans Alison Riske-Amritraj and Coco Gauff leading up to the semifinals.

Jabeur also became the first North African tennis player to reach a grand slam singles final at the United States Open. The others were South Africans Eric Sturgess, Cliff Drysdale and Kevin Anderson. In 1948, Sturgess lost the U.S. Open Men’s Final to Pancho Gonzalez of the United States, 6-2, 6-3, 14-12. In 1965, Drysdale lost the U.S. Open Men’s Final to Manuel Santana of Spain, 6-2, 7-9, 7-5, 6-1. In 2017, Anderson lost the final to Rafael Nadal of Spain, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4.

In the women’s final on Saturday, Jabeur will face world number one Iga Swiatek of Poland. Swiatek is seeking her third career grand slam title as she previously won the 2020 French Open and the 2022 French Open. In the semifinal on Friday, Swiatek, the number one seed, beat the sixth seed, Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4.

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