“Main goal is Wimbledon even before the year starts” Ons Jabeur confident of a deep run at the Grand Slam

World No. 2 and the third seed at the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, Ons Jabeur is a heavy favourite going into the major with a quarter-final run last year and a good preparation on the surface including a title in the WTA-500 Berlin event. Yet to win a major and with no points to be added at this year’s event, Ons did not seem worried about the factor as her sole focus remains on winning the Venus Rosewater Dish.

“It’s going great. I had a great practice with Serena again, you know friendship on the Tour. But it’s going great and hopefully, I will be ready for Monday. The literal experience I had from playing Roland Garros (first-round defeat), I just want to be ready and not overplay. My knee, I always had trouble with it so I just want to be precautious and not to be finished and be ready for Wimbledon. Overall everything is good and hopefully, I’ll be 100% on Monday,” said Ons in her pre-tournament media conference at the Championships.

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Ons Jabeur addresses the ban on athletes and points removal

Jabeur addressed the ban on Russian and Belarusian players at this year’s Wimbledon and also in an interesting point of view talked about taking positives from the situation. She also addressed her injury withdrawal from the Doubles with Serena Williams in Eastbourne last week and revealed why was the decision taken as the pair had already entered the semis.

“I spoke about this before and I always said like my idea is to not mix sports and politics together because at the end of the story the athletes get affected and the players couldn’t play in the tournament and we couldn’t get the points so no one kind of winning at the end. But for me, it is what it is. Not really happy for not getting points because I have a quarter-final to defend. But at least I was not in the finals or something, so always staying positive in this. Wimbledon is a Grand Slam, it is amazing and I will be 100% ready to win it.

“I think playing a lot of matches was very tiring physically and mentally but especially mentally and going to the French Open, I really felt that pressure of everybody expecting me to do well and I wasn’t used to that, just an invisible player going into a Grand Slam and doing well sometimes but I tried to learn from that to not overplay and not play a lot of matches on grass and just prepare myself for the main goal. For me, the main goal was Wimbledon even before the year starts,” said Ons.

Jabeur speaks on Serena and the things she loves about Wimbledon

With Serena and Ons hitting together and making the semis, the two have seemed to develop a great bond and the Tunisian was happy to see the 23-time major winner return to Grand Slam action after a year-long absence. Jabeur also talked about her admiration for the Grand Slam and what makes it so special for her to aim to win it from the start of the season.

“Honestly, I was so lucky to be picked by her and play along her side. It gives me more confidence to be a much better player and she’s amazing, I am so glad that she came back, and decided to come back. I feel she’s okay, I played with her and she’s moving really good and she’s an amazing player, you can see on the important points, she can serve three aces and she’s really great and hopefully I want to see her win a lot of matches here.

“I think first of all, the dress code. Everybody loves that and for me, it feels like a wedding, everybody in white or a beach party with a dress code. I love the crowd here, how respectful they are and no matter if you’re ranked 200 or 1, there are always people who are passionate about tennis and the energy overall, I love nature, you can see flowers and green stuff everywhere that I love so much.

“Wimbledon always has a special place in my heart. Before it was the French Open since it was closer to Tunisia and I grew up playing on clay a lot but on grass I usually play football, not tennis but it’s amazing what I experienced last year, the emotions on centre court and everything that happened, it just became a dream and I wish I can have that dream one day,” added Jabeur concluding the press conference.

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