More than once, the Grand Slam final has long been a private, national, professional and more for us and the tennis industry.
Today (Saturday, 16:00), any result recorded on the board at the end of the women's final at Wimbledon, in the match between Rape Jabor and Elena Rybakina, will be considered historic - for all the reasons mentioned here.
"A proud Tunisian woman is standing here in front of you, years of work and sacrifice are paying off for me now, I hope I inspire others" - these are part of Jabor's summary sentences after her Wimbledon semi-final victory over Cinderella of the tournament, German Tatiana Maria.
A victory that secured her a historic ticket to the first Grand Slam final of her career.
And Jabor really is a piece of inspiration.
For the first time in the industry's history, an Arab and African tennis player will play in a Grand Slam final today.
She achieves this achievement after becoming the first Arab to qualify for the Grand Slam semi-finals (in the current tournament) and the quarter-finals (Australian Open, 2020), the first to win a tournament in the WTA round (Birmingham, 2021) and the first to win a Masters 1000 (Madrid, 2022).
Making Tunisia proud 🇹🇳❤️ @ Ons_Jabeur |
#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/COxViOTRCk
- wta (@WTA) July 7, 2022
But it is not just Jabor that has recorded the industry’s greatest achievement in the country from which it comes.
Opposite her will be the Kazakh Rivakina, who, just like the world number two, became her homeland for the first time in the Grand Slam final, and the only one to reach the semifinals.
So in fact, no matter who swings the success of the evening, she's going to become a kind of national heroine.
Rybakina.
Her height determined her career, Photo: Getty Images
Apart from the achievements, the two rivals today have quite a bit in common: they both started playing at a young age due to their parents' love for the industry, their favorite surface is not grass (Jabor - clay, Rybakina - hard), and both experience the year
owes everything to mom
Jabor, 27, grew up in a small beach town in Tunisia and started playing tennis at the age of 3, following her mother, who loved to play as a hobby at the time.
At the age of 12, Jabor moved to train in the capital city of Tunis, and four years later she moved to train in France and Belgium.
Her career, the Tunisian admits, she owes to her mother, whose love of acting made her invest her whole being for the sake of her home career.
"She drove me all over the country to play in tournaments and enrolled me in a special tennis school," says Jabor. "It was a great sacrifice on her part to go with my dream. She believed in me and gave me the confidence to keep playing."
However, Jabor's big break comes at a relatively late age (she achieved her first WTA title only last year, at 26) and like all the unstable round women in recent years, she can easily become another passing episode.
The first two Grand Slams of the year were a failure for her, (retired from Australia due to injury and flew in the first round at Roland Garros) but the current tournament was for her and for tennis as a whole proof, how much talent there is in someone who broke all the glass ceilings that stood in her way.
Thrilled to see Elena Rybakina reach the Women's Single Finals at Wimbledon and putting Kazakhstan tennis on the map.
We will
be cheering her on this Saturday.
#Rybakina https://t.co/vGE9mBfgEd
- US Embassy to Kazakhstan (@USembassyKAZ) July 8, 2022
Money buys a nation
Rivakina, 23, was born in Moscow and began her sporting career in gymnastics and ice skating - two of the most popular industries in Russia.
She made the transition to tennis at the age of 6, on the advice of her father who expressed interest in white sports and after being told she was too tall to be a gymnast or skater.
2018 was a turning point in the Kazakh's career.
After first entering the top 200 in the world, and shortly before celebrating its 19th birthday, the Kazakhstan Tennis Federation offered the young tennis player to change her nationality and compete under the new flag, in exchange for funding and financial support.
Rybakina received Kazakh citizenship, joining actors like Michael Kokushkin, Alexander Bublik and others, who were born in Russia and did the same process before her.
Rybakina's advantage over Jabor will be reflected in her first serve of the game.
The Kazakh has shelled out no less than 49 aces so far in the tournament, and 217 in total in 2022.
Simona Halp, the 2019 champion who lost in the semifinals to Rivakina, admitted that she played even better than that final victory over Serena Williams three years ago.
And if the Kazakh, who gives an amazing tournament on any scale, defeated the great Romanian when she is in that shape, Jabor expects a difficult task at all.
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