Ons Jabeur provided a hilarious answer when a reporter brought up that Aryna Sabalenka becomes louder when she is in difficulty on the court. In the Wimbledon semifinal, Jabeur appeared to be heading toward a straight-set defeat as Sabalenka was up by a set and had a 4-2 lead in the second set.
But then, Jabeur stormed back to beat Sabalenka 6-7 (5) 6-4 6-3 and reach back-to-back Wimbledon finals. When Jabeur was losing, she tried to stay calm and not show many emotions. After the match, one question that Jabeur received went: “I want to ask about your coping mechanisms.
Aryna was really loud and hitting the ball really hard. We didn’t figure out what are your coping mechanisms.”
Jabeur’s asked about Sabalenka’s coping mechanism on the court
“She was screaming for both of us, I guess (laughter).
I couldn’t even scream with her. It’s tough. It is true. I mean, that’s the thing about playing Aryna. She’s there. You know she’s there. Actually it’s funny, because when I had the match point on her serve, the crowd was cheering for me.
I was like, Please, please, don’t cheer, she will get angry and she will ace me. She did actually. She got so angry that she aced me. Me, I tried to stay calm. I did get angry a lot because of not accepting a bit she was serving very well and not finding a way.
But staying in the match, that’s how I coped with playing today,” Jabeur said.Two games away from the defeat, Jabeur kept believing she would eventually get one chance to get herself back in the match. “For me it was just one serve, one game.
I just wanted to try to break her. It was very difficult for me to return her serve. Especially if she was mixing a lot. Even the speed was difficult. She missed some shots that did help me stay in the game. I was fighting every point.
We just wait for a little bit of chance sometime to get the game, and that’s what happened,” Jabeur reflected. In the Wimbledon final, Jabeur plays against Marketa Vondrousova.
