‘What about other countries?’ Ons Jabeur condemns the mixing of ‘politics and sports’ by Wimbledon
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Ons Jabeur
Ons Jabeur is in tremendous form this season on clay courts. She reached the final of the Charleston Open and followed it up with a quarterfinal run at Stuttgart where she lost to Paula Badosa. She began her campaign here in Madrid with a win in a tough battle against Jasmine Paolini. She defeated Paolini 7-6(11-9), and 6-1 to advance to the second round in Madrid.
Currently ranked No. 10 on the WTA ranking list, she is the eighth seed in this tournament, and after so many great runs she will be hungry for her second singles title. She is the highest-ranked Arab tennis player in ATP or WTA rankings history. She would like to win these prestigious tournaments to stamp her legacy.
“Look back at Palestine” Ons Jabeur voices her opinion
Ons Jabeur is not happy with the Wimbledon imposing a ban on the Russian and Belarusian players due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War.
According to Arab News, Ons said in an interview that: “It’s a very tough decision, I understand what the Ukrainian people are going through and I am totally against war. But what I’ve always been told for so many years is to never mix sports and politics.”
“What about all the other countries where people and children have been dying every day? For me, I don’t think we should mix politics and sports. It’s very sad what’s happening in the world and one thing I hate in this world is politics. It’s very dirty and we can never get the full picture of everything. So I hope this situation will be resolved very soon, I don’t know what’s going to happen.“
“But I know that also Russians and Belarusians have their families back home, so I’m not sure how much they can talk about it. So it’s a very difficult situation for both, especially for Ukrainians. And honestly, I hope this war will be over soon so there will be no problems.”
She concluded by saying that “But I also hope people could also look back to Palestinians because this subject really touches me as an Arab woman, it’s not fair and I hope we don’t mix politics and sports.”
Jabeur faced a tough first set from Paolini but defeated her convincingly after a valiant effort by her. She moved on to the second round in Madrid and will face Varvara Gracheva there.
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Prateek Sinha
(365 Articles Published)