LONDON: Fresh from her tournament win in Manchester, Ons Jabeur has been handed a wildcard for Wimbledon and pitched against a Swiss opponent she has a 100 percent record against.
Jabeur, the world 130 from Tunisia, has been paired with Viktorija Golubic in the first round of the grass-court slam and they will play when the tournament gets underway on Monday.
Jabeur will go into the clash on the crest of a wave after winning an ITF $100,000 title in Manchester earlier this month without dropping a set. The 23-year-old jumped up nearly 50 places in the rankings on the back of what was the biggest payday of her career.
The right-hander from Tunis will earn £39,000 ($51,000) for her morning’s work on Monday, but there is the carrot of £69,000 in the second round where she will meet either CoCo. Vandeweghe, the 16th seed, or Kateřina Siniaková.
Jabeur lost in the first round last year to Svetlana Kuznetsova, which was a blow as a few months earlier she had become the first Arab woman to reach the third round of a Grand Slam singles tournament, knocking out Dominika Cibulkova on her run at the French Open. Jabeur clearly likes the clay as it was at Roland Garros in 2011 when she won the Girls’ Singles title.
Now Jabeur must get her grass game together and she will surely take confidence from her flawless record against Golubic. She has beaten the world No.99 twice on grass in England this year and also on a hard court in France in 2014, losing just one set in three matches.
She knows she is flying the flag for the region when she swings her racket.
“Well, when I win, I represent the Arab world. When I lose, I try to be just Ons Jabeur,” she said in an interview last year. “We are small country. The Arab world is like when you do something good, you’re from Tunisia, and from Morocco, other Arab country, they get interested in you.
“For me, it’s not only about Tunisia anymore, and it’s all about the Arab country, African continent. It’s amazing, because I feel like my country is getting bigger and bigger.”