Wimbledon 2023: Tunisia's Ons Jabeur defeats Rybakina in quarter-final
Tunisian tennis star Ons Jabeur defeated Elena Rybakina in the Wimbledon quarter-finals on Wednesday, beating her Kazakh opponent two sets to one.
The 28-year-old got the better of the third-seeded defending champion 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-1 to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals.
Jabeur will now play second seed Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals on Thursday, after Belarusian Sabalenka beat American Madison Keys in straight sets earlier.
Jabeur told BBC Sport that she was elated with the result.
"I'm very happy with the performance. There was a lot of emotion out there especially playing someone who serves really well.
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"It's frustrating to return but I'm glad I did everything, shouted, got angry then got calm and focused. Hopefully, I can keep managing my emotions like this for the next few matches."
'We didn't expect it'
Jabeur was born in Ksar Hellal, a small town in northeastern Tunisia, and grew up in the nearby coastal city of Sousse.
At the age of three, she was introduced to tennis by her mother, who played the sport recreationally. She often trained in hotels and tourist resorts, owing to the lack of courts in tennis clubs.
"Her parents have done everything possible to support her, and sometimes spent more money than they had. Yet we did not expect her to go far," her uncle Mohamed Jabeur told MEE last year.
"We simply could not imagine that she would be able to match up with rivals from countries which, contrary to Tunisia, invest in sport."
Jabeur began competing in national tournaments aged six, and internationally four years later. Aged 12, she moved 90 miles to Tunis, where she trained at Lycee Sportif El Menzah, a multi-sport national academy for emerging Tunisian talents.
She made her debut in a junior Grand Slam tournament at the US Open in 2009, and the following year reached the final of the junior French Open.
It was in 2011 when she came to international attention, winning the French Open girls' championship to become the first Arab woman to win a junior Grand Slam title, as well as the first Arab since Egypt's Ismail El Shafei won the Wimbledon boys' tournament in 1964.
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