The Tunisian Ons Jabeur overwhelmed the French Caroline Garcia on Thursday and advanced to the definition of the United States Open tennis, her second consecutive final in Grand Slam tournaments.
Jabeur, the first African semifinalist at the US Open, beat Garcia 6-1, 6-3 in just 66 minutes of play at the monumental Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadows.
After losing to Kazakh Elena Rybakina with the Wimbledon crown on the line, Jabeur will get a second chance at her first Grand Slam title on Saturday.
“It feels amazing. After Wimbledon there was a lot of pressure on me and I have delivered on the results,” she expressed.
Jabeur, 28 years old like Garcia, will face the winner of the other ‘semi’, starring the world number 1 Iga Swiatek and the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, tonight.
“I hope your match lasts five hours,” he wished. “They are very good players but a final is not about tennis, it is about winning.”
Jabeur had a lightning start to the match against a blurred Garcia, who paid the weight of playing her first Grand Slam semifinals and the first in French women’s tennis since Marion Bartoli in 2013, at Wimbledon.
The Frenchwoman, champion of the WTA 1000 in Cincinnati and with a streak of 13 wins in a row, was quickly overtaken by the devastating tennis of Jabeur, who hit 8 ‘aces’ and 21 winning shots, to 2 and 12 from her rival.
Garcia delivered the first set in just 23 minutes, suffering three service breaks. In the second he raised the intensity but never put the Tunisian at risk and left without having a single break point.
