There will be an intriguing women’s final at Wimbledon this year. On Saturday, Ons Jabeur of Tunisia will face Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan. Tunisia and Kazakhstan have never been represented in a grand slam singles tennis final before, and all of a sudden one of these countries will have its first ever grand slam singles champion.
In the semifinals on Thursday, Jabeur, the third seed, defeated Tatjana Maria of Germany 6-2, 3-6, 6-1. Heading into Wimbledon 2022, Jabeur was 100 places ahead of Maria in the world rankings. Jabeur was world number three, and Maria was world no. 103, yet this was a very evenly played match over the first two sets before Jabeur simply took command.
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Jabeur had the slight edge when it came to serves. Jabeur had four aces and two double faults, while Maria had zero aces and five double faults. Both players need to be praised for the creativity they showed on the tennis court and their high level of support for one another.
In the other semifinal, Rybakina, the 17th seed, beat 2019 Wimbledon champion Simona Halep of Romania, the 16th seed, 6-3, 6-3 in straight sets. A lot of the tennis experts predicted Halep in this one because she would use her confidence from Wimbledon three years ago as a benefit. However, Halep is her own worst enemy and gets down own herself easily when she loses confidence. That is what happened here as Halep had eight double faults in a poorly served match by the 30-year-old Romanian.
Jabeur has beaten Rybakina in two of their three prior meetings. This will be their first meeting at a grand slam.
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