With the hopes of a country, a continent and a world of tennis lovers who felt she was long overdue urging her toward history, Ons Jabeur fell agonizingly short. For the second time at Wimbledon, and the third time in a year at a Grand Slam, Jabeur had hoped to become the first woman from Tunisia, the first from Africa and the first Arabic speaker to win a major women’s singles tournament.
The pressure of playing for so much and so many may have caught up to her, again.
“Honestly, I felt a lot of pressure, feeling a lot of stress,” Jabeur said Saturday after losing the women’s singles final, 6-4, 6-4 to Marketa Vondrousova. “But like every final, like every match I played, I was telling myself, ‘It’s OK, it’s normal.’ I honestly did nothing wrong.”
For years on tour, Jabeur has done everything right, except win a title that she and her fans so desperately desire. Tears flowed again on Centre Court, as Jabeur joined the likes of Andy Murray and Jana Novotna, two former Wimbledon finalists who each cried after losing finals they had hoped would be their breakthrough championships.
Jabeur, who lost last year’s Wimbledon final — and the final of the last U.S. Open — struggled against Vondrousova, who won to become the first unseeded Wimbledon women’s…
