Dubai: The Arab world’s best player Ons Jabeur dug in deep to send a higher-ranked Alison Riske packing 7-6, 1-6, 6-3 and then trained her sights on top seed Simona Halep at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Monday.
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Ranked No. 18, Riske had not yet lost to any player outside the top 5 until she encountered the feisty world No. 45 Jabeur, who took her chances to sail through to a second-round meeting against top seed Halep. Last month, Jabeur became the first Arab woman to enter the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam, and it is this confidence that she wants to now ride against a top field here.
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“It’s been an amazing experience for me at the Australian Open. I am here with a lot of confidence and with a little more experience than last year,” Jabeur said as she thanked the crowd.
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“The crowd has been unbelievable and I was thrilled to see so many Tunisian flags here. Hopefully, the crowd will come tomorrow and cheer me on against another great player,” the 25-year-old added.
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It was Riske who started on an aggressive note with a break in the very first game and held to lead 2-0. But the Tunisian fought back with a break in the fourth to draw level 2-2 till the set was ultimately decided 7-3 by tie-breaker in favour of Jabeur.
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The second set too had a similar start, but this time Riske was more focused breaking her opponent in the second and fourth games to lead 5-0 before Jabeur took a medical time-off to patch a blister under her left foot even though the American won the set 6-1.
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Egged on by a partisan Tunisian crowd, Jabeur got the crucial break in the eighth game of the deciding third to serve out set and match in two hours and 12 minutes.
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Earlier, former finalist Barbora Strycova battled her way into the second round with a hard-fought 7-6, 2-6, 6-4 win over teenager Amanda Anisimova.
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The 18-year-old American, who defeated defending champion and world No. 3 Simona Halep in straight sets to reach the 2019 French Open semi-finals, managed to turn things around winning the second set. But her 33-year-old opponent had too much experience as she nudged clear in the ninth and then broke one last time to take set and match in two hours and 34 minutes.
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“It wasn’t really a great match from both sides,” Strycova admitted.
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“It’s really tough conditions out there and the ball is flying everywhere. But I was really happy to keep the ball in the court. It was a really tough match for me and I’m very happy to be in the second round,” the Czech girl added.
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In another match played on the side court, Qiang Wang – who produced one of the biggest upsets of the 2020 Australian Open while defeating Serena Williams in their third round encounter before losing to Jabeur – failed to advance beyond the first round after she was chased out 6-3, 6-0 by Belgian, Elise Mertens.
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Mertens was in total control while winning the last ten games and dropping just a single point on serve in the second set to hustle out her Chinese opponent in exactly 62 minutes.
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RESULTS
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Singles
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Barbora Strycova bt Amanda Anisimova 7-6, 2-6, 6-4
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Elise Mertens bt Qiang Wang 6-3, 6-0
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Ons Jabeur bt Alison Riske 6-3
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Doubles
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Lyudmyla Kichenok/Nadiia Kichenok bt Darija Jurak/Yaroslava Shvedova 4-6, 6-2 1-0
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Yingying Duan/Veronika Kudermetova bt Viktorija Golubic/Jil Teichmann 6-0, 6-1
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Sofia Kenin/Bethanie Mattek-Sands bt Monique Adamczak/Yana Sizikova 6-0, 7-5
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Makoto Ninomiya/Zhaoxuan Yang vs Julia Goerges/Simona Halep 6-2, 6-1
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Kveta Peschke/Demi Schuurs bt Kirsten Flipkens/Alison Van Uytvanck 6-3, 6-1
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