Tunisian teenager Ons Jabeur is dreaming big as the reigning Roland Garros junior champion and plans to become one of the world’s top-10 players within two years.
The 17-year-old has already showed signs of her true grit when she returned to Paris last year having finished runner-up in 2010, only to go one better and lift the junior French Open trophy.
This week in Dubai, she was drawn to face the top seed in the qualifying draw – Jie Zheng who is the world No33 and a two-time Grand Slam semi-finalist. Not the kind of luck you’d want in only your second WTA event, but Jabeur doesn’t appear to be one to count on luck.
The young Tunisian exudes confidence and positivity and when asked whether she was disappointed when she saw the draw, she said: “No because I had played her in doubles last week and saw that she wasn’t a difficult opponent. In general in life, there’s nothing that is too difficult.”
Since she won the French Open juniors last year to become the first Arab to win a junior Grand Slam title since 1964, Jabeur had shifted her focus to the ladies’ tour but injuries hampered her progress, last of which is an ankle injury that still requires her to play with some heavy strapping.
“My transition from juniors to women’s tennis wasn’t really straightforward because I got several injuries, it wasn’t easy,” Jabeur said after her win over Zheng.
“But thankfully after a match like this I am slowly regaining my confidence and hopefully within a couple of years I will become one of the top-10 players in the world.”
“My ankle is better, it’s improving slowly and I’m hoping that soon I play without a tape.”
Inching closer to becoming completely fit, Jabeur’s main priority this season is to increase her WTA ranking and she has a full schedule ahead of her.
She says: “I need to play some $10K’s and $15K’s because my ranking is basically garbage right now!
“And then I’ll play Fed Cup in Egypt and continue to work hard on increasing my ranking.
“Obviously I need to practice more and more but I feel that I can compete at a very high level.”
Having grown up in Tunisia, Jabeur is training outside her nation for the first time in her career since she joined the Justine Henin Academy in Belgium last November.
After several years of void in Arab tennis, last year Jabeur’s surprise was accompanied by a fellow Tunisian’s rise, Malek Jaziri, who managed to win a match at the US Open and is now on the brink of breaking the top 100 in men’s tennis.
“Me and Malek planned it together,” joked Jabeur of the pleasant coincidence. “No really I feel the revolution really helped us to give our best and play with our hearts.”
