Tunisian star and women’s singles seventh seed Ons Jabeur has lashed out at the
French Open spectators for presuming that the female matches are going to be ‘crappy’. Jabeur, who will be competing against Bernarda Pera in the fourth round, made these comments in the aftermath of understanding that the tickets for the night session of the Grand Slam for Sunday were being resold after the rescheduling of a women’s singles game.
“It’s time to change that vision, because I find that people don’t watch many female matches and they just judge that it’s going to be a crappy match. But it’s not the case, there are a lot of extraordinary matches,” Jabeur explained.
She added, “Women are training, playing extraordinary matches. How can you judge a women’s match without watching it? I hope that is going to change the mentality of giving a chance for these women who fight on a daily basis. Because honestly, we do a lot of efforts. We make a lot of sacrifices that men don’t have to do on the tour.”
Jabeur asked the organisers to start the night sessions a bit earlier so that two matches could be put together. She acknowledged that difficulties could arise in the same with the men players playing five sets but added that it had been done earlier in other Grand Slams.
“Being a woman is tough. It depends with the time of the month that you have, but sometimes you have to manage. Unfortunately I had few days where it’s very tough. This thing you can never 100% manage, unfortunately, but I’m learning to know my body better,” Jabeur asserted post her victory against Serbian Olga Danilovic.
Jabeur even quipped, “Men will never understand,” upon being asked of her struggles in overcoming Danilovic who had won the first set in a game that rounded off 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 in the Tunisian player’s favour.
Who is Ons Jabeur?
Jabeur is a former number two ranked Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) singles player and also holds the pedigree of being the top-ranked African and Asian tennis player in the history of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the WTA.
She finished as the runners-up in the women’s singles category in both the Wimbledon and the US Open in 2022 and has dropped only one set in her three wins in the French Open this year. As aforementioned, she will be locking horns with Pera in the fourth round of the Roland Garros.
Jabeur reiterated that she wished to see a full-packed stadium Aryna Sabalenka Slaone Stephens face each other in the fourth round clash in the night session of the tournament on Sunday.
(Edited by : Prakhar Sachdeo)
