“Yes, that’s what they call me everywhere I go,” Jabeur said. “The first thing they say is, `You know, I wake up at 3 a.m. to watch your matches.’ Everybody’s also blaming me for waking up so early.“Seriously, though, it’s great to see the support from the whole country.”
A decade after she won the junior title at Roland Garros as a 16-year-old, Jabeur finally cracked the Hologic WTA Tour Top 10 last fall. She was the first Arab woman to manage that feat. In Tunisia, a small country at the northern tip of Africa, that’s a big deal.
“There is always a first time, I say,” Jabeur said, laughing of course. “I am glad that I am the first one to do it. Me, doing this, I try to inspire another generation with this, with great pleasure.
“I always try to work even harder because now the work is even tougher than before. The hardest thing is to maintain this great level, and hopefully I can do it.”
Jabeur’s upcoming schedule is expected to include Stuttgart, Madrid, Rome and Roland Garros. As she moves forward, she said she hopes 2022 was just the beginning of many terrific memories.
“I want to win more titles,” she said. “I want to be in the Top 5. Yeah, that’s the key for us. We’re trying to find every single detail to push for what’s missing for me to be one of the best five players in the world, and we’re getting there.
“We’re working very hard – we’re just waiting for everything to click.”
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