NEW YORK – Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur will become the first Arab player to crack the top 10 of the tennis world rankings after she defeated Estonian Anett Kontaveit 7-5 6-3 in their Indian Wells quarter-final, the WTA confirmed.
“(It) feels amazing – we’ve been working hard (for) years and when I spoke at the end of last season I said I wanted to be in the top 10, you know, people doubted us as a team but we proved them wrong,” she said after the match.
“Being a top 10 means a lot but we are not going to stop here – we’re going to go further, hopefully.”
The 27-year-old slowly chipped away at Kontaveit’s defences Thursday, converting five of her 12 break-point chances on the way to collecting her 48th match win of the season, the most of any player on the tour this season.
Jabeur reached the final of the Chicago Fall Tennis Classic earlier this month and became the first Arab player to win a WTA title at the Birmingham Classic in June.
Elsewhere, US Open runner-up Leylah Fernandez will not be part of Canada’s team for the Billie Jean King Cup finals next month.
Tennis Canada confirmed that Fernandez pulled out of the team’s roster for the Nov. 1-6 matches in Prague and is being replaced by Carol Zhao.
The other members of the country’s squad are Rebecca Marino, Gabriela Dabrowski and Françoise Abanda.
Canada is scheduled to open the finals by facing 2019 champion France and Russia. The 2020 edition of the event was called off because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Fernandez is set to play for the Orange County Breakers in World TeamTennis, which runs Nov. 13-28 at Indian Wells, California. She was eliminated in singles and doubles from the hard-court combined ATP and WTA tournament there this week.
“It’s been a long season,” she said after her loss at the BNP Paribas Open according to AP. “We’re just going to see what the body says, what the mind says, and we’ll go from there.”
The 19-year-old Fernandez turned in a breakthrough performance at the US Open, making it all the way to the final before losing to another unseeded teenager, Emma Raducanu.
Fernandez arrived at Flushing Meadows ranked No. 73 and left at a career-best No. 28 after beating defending champion Naomi Osaka in the third round, followed by 2016 champion Angelique Kerber and top-five seeds Elina Svitolina and Aryna Sabalenka.
Discussion about this post