Ons Jabeur on her Grand Slam and No 1 goal, starring in Break Point and joining the PTPA executive board
It was a case of so close, but yet so far for Ons Jabeur in 2022 as she finished runner-up in two Grand Slams and also ended the year as the world No 2 so it is no surprise that winning a major and becoming world No 1 are two of her main goals for this year.
The trailblazing Tunisian notched up several milestones last year as she became the first African and Arab woman to win a WTA 1000 title when she lifted the Madrid Open and also climbed to a career-high of No 2 in the WTA Rankings.
Yet bigger and better things were still to come as she went on to reach the final of Wimbledon – again becoming the first Arab and African woman to achieve the feat – finishing runner-up to Elena Rybakina while she was also a finalist at the US Open.
“I want to be No 1 in the world, not just the number but also the level and the discipline around it,” the 28-year-old said of her 2023 goals. “I want to win more titles and get that Grand Slam title, for sure.”
Jabeur hopes to carry her Grand Slam form over to next week’s Australian Open.
She missed last year’s edition due to injury, but is determined to improve on her best run which came in 2020 when she reached the last eight.
“I may not be as happy as I was in 2020 reaching the quarter-final,” she said. “It’s still a quarter-final, you know? I just like to give every round what every round deserves.
“The goal as second in the world is to be in the second week, to make finals.
“I like this kind of pressure. I’m going to put more pressure on myself because I feel like sometimes you just need that to be one of the top players.”
Netflix’s highly-anticipated tennis documentary Break Point was released on Friday and Jabeur is one of the feature players.
She stars in Episode 4, titled Great Expectations, alongside Spaniard Paula Badosa.
Asked for her thoughts on the series, she replied: “I watched the first episode and [then] I skipped to my episode.
“I liked the episode with Paula. We actually filmed more things that’s not there. I’m still waiting for the second part because I feel like there are a lot of things we filmed at Wimbledon and the US Open. Hopefully I can see that and they didn’t follow me around the whole time for just 30 minutes.
“It’s nice. I hope they can show more of you inside the locker rooms and what people want to see.”
Jabeur doesn’t just have on-court goals as she has some off-court responsibilities as well now after joining the Professional Tennis Players Association’s (PTPA) first-ever executive committee.
She will feature alongside Novak Djokovic, John Isner, Badosa and four other players on the board.
Asked why she joined the board, the Tunisian answered: “There are a lot of things we can improve in our sport. I was really curious to see what we can do more and I have learned a lot of things,” she said.
“We don’t want to fight with everyone. We just want to make our sport great and gives what tennis deserves, give what the players deserve. That was my first goal. We just started, we have had a couple of meetings and I am just really curious to see what we can do to help more of the players.”
