For the third time, the 28-year-old lost in the final of a Grand Slam tournament. A glass ceiling which is for the moment the only limit that the Tunisian cannot push back.

“All like Ons Jabeur”, the little Tunisians gathered at the Tennis Club of Tunis dream of imitating their model and one day playing at Wimbledon where the world number 6 was in the running this Saturday, July 15 for her very first Grand Slam victory. To achieve this, the 28-year-old Tunisian successively beat Bianca Andreescu (winner of the US Open 2019), Petra Kvitova (Wimbledon 2011 and 2014), Elena Rybakina (Wimbledon 2022) and Aryna Sabalenka (Australia 2023) on Thursday.

“I have no words… Thanks to the crowd who kept me in the game,” Jabeur said as his very first words after his win. “Accepting his serves and power shots was very difficult, so thank you for believing in me and supporting me all the way,” she added. “I’m very proud of myself because the old me would have lost this game and I would already be on my way home, but I found the strength to fight,” she added, explaining pulling the strings. fruits of his psychological work. “I’m learning to turn negative energy, like frustration, into positive energy. I knew how to reach deep inside of me to win this match… and, who knows, the tournament,” she said with a smile.

Jabeur had won their first duel, at Roland-Garros in 2020, but Sabalenka had won the next three, including that at Wimbledon in 2021. This defeat deprived the Belarusian of a new major final, after the one won in January at the Open Australia, as well as the world No. 1 spot she would have clinched by qualifying for the final.

As for Jabeur, already considered the best African player in history, she becomes the first player to chain two Wimbledon finals since Serena Williams (2018-2019). “I am able to become like Ons Jabeur and participate in Grand Slam tournaments like Wimbledon and Roland-Garros,” bravely told AFP Lina Chedli, 9, daughter of Ibtissem. On the clay courts, sometimes sheltered from the scorching sun by tall trees, Lina, Yassmine and Emna hit the little yellow ball vigorously. Their families, mostly from the Tunisian middle class, came to encourage them.

Ibtissem Treimech, mother of a budding champion, confirms the enthusiasm for Jabeur: “When they see Ons Jabeur participating twice in two successive years in two Grand Slams and succeeding in being a finalist, children and parents are inspired and they encourage their children to practice this sport even more,” she told AFP.

The player, a national icon in Tunisia, has sparked unprecedented enthusiasm for tennis in the past three years, in a country where football is usually king. Especially in little girls.

Yasmine Ben Mabrouk, a 9-year-old child, has no doubts about her talent: “I think I will become a very great tennis player like Ons Jabeur and I will participate in very great matches. »

Not far away, 10-year-old Emna Bartagisse even thinks she can “become better than Ons Jabeur”. Proud of being a “100% Tunisian product”, all of Tunisia’s aspiring champions praise Jabeur’s dynamic play, punctuated with drop shots and net runs, and her sense of camaraderie. His perseverance and his ability to overcome a series of injuries, wrist and calf, which caused him to miss part of the 2022-2023 season also command admiration.

Coming from a middle-class family in the suburbs of Sousse, a seaside resort in the center-east, Ons Jabeur is close to his audience and spends long minutes at the end of each match signing autographs and taking selfies.

Since bursting onto the screen in January 2020 at the Australian Open, becoming the first Arab player to qualify for a Grand Slam quarter-final, the soon-to-be 29-year-old has become a national pride in Tunisia.

More recently, she was even nicknamed “Minister of Happiness” for her ability to boost the morale of a country in the grip of a serious economic and political crisis, since the coup by which President Kaïs Saïed seized the full powers in the summer of 2021.