Ons Jabeur of Tunisia advanced to her second WTA 1000 semi-final of her career after defeating former world number one Simona Halep 6-3 6-2 at the Madrid Open on Wednesday.
In just over an hour, Jabeur, 27, who reached the final four at Indian Wells in 2021, won an astounding 77.8% of points on her first serve and converted four of her five break points against two-time champion Halep.
For a chance to play in her first WTA 1000 final, Jabeur will face the winner of the match between Ekaterina Anisimova and Amanda Alexandrova.
In the other quarter-finals, Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo will meet American Jessica Pegula and Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina will face Swiss Jil Teichmann.
Ons Jabeur is a Tunisian professional tennis player. She has a career-high ranking of No. 10 by the Women’s Tennis Association, WTA
She is the current No. 1 African player, and the highest-ranked Arab tennis player in ATP or WTA rankings history.
At the 2020 Australian Open, she became the first Arab woman to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament, which she once again achieved at the 2021 Wimbledon Championships. Jabeur won her first WTA title at the 2021 Birmingham Classic by defeating Daria Kasatkina, thus becoming the first ever Tunisian female tennis player to win a WTA title.
Jabeur was first introduced to tennis at age three by her mother. She reached two junior Grand Slam girls’ singles finals at the French Open in 2010 and 2011, winning the title in the latter. She is the first Arab player to win a junior Grand Slam singles title since Ismail El Shafei won the Wimbledon boys’ title in 1964. After nearly a decade playing primarily at the ITF level, Jabeur has become more of a mainstay on the WTA Tour beginning in 2017.