Creating history is a defining feature of Ons Jabeur’s career, and she did so again at Roland Garros on Monday.
With a 63-minute, 6-3 6-1 rout of Bernarda Pera, Jabeur progressed to the quarterfinals in Paris for the first time.
She has now reached at least this stage at all four Grand Slam tournaments, becoming the first African player in the Open Era to achieve the feat. Her first quarterfinal came at Australian Open 2020.
She next faces Brazil’s Beatriz Haddad Maia.
“It was the only Grand Slam missing,” said Jabeur, a former world No.2 who last year reached both the Wimbledon and US Open finals.
“I'm very happy with the performance, with the way I was playing, especially coming back after an injury. I was just taking it one match at a time, trying to make it to the second week.
“Now I'm gonna push more for the next few matches. Hopefully better than a quarterfinal final here, looking for a semifinal.
“To be honest, I never thought about like something was missing or (that) I didn't reach all four (major quarterfinals)... Maybe it's a good thing.
“It came, and hopefully we'll set it to all semifinals and then all finals.”
While she may not have given it much thought, it is curious that Roland Garros was, until now, the only Grand Slam tournament at which Jabeur had failed to progress so far.
Given her connection to the event, her early history at it, and her level of comfort on the surface, it’s actually surprising a quarterfinal breakthrough didn’t happen in Paris first.
In 2011, Jabeur won the girls’ singles title, a huge story in her native Tunisia as she became the first Arab in the Open Era to win a junior Grand Slam singles title.
The fact it happened at Roland Garros was all the more significant given, as Jabeur explains, it is the tennis tournament commanding the most attention in the North African nation.
“We both love French Open,” Jabeur said of her and her husband, Karim Kamoun, who is also her fitness trainer.
“He loves Roland Garros a lot, because he grew up watching it more than me, I've got to say. It's a Tunisian thing, apparently. Everybody really loves Roland Garros and watch it.
“For sure I know every Tunisian is watching Roland Garros and wishing me the best.
“I like to use that pressure as a great thing for the future.”
On occasions, that pressure became too much.
Jabeur arrived at Roland Garros last year as the second favourite behind Iga Swiatek, having won the WTA 1000 tournament in Madrid after reaching the final in Charleston as part of a stellar clay-court season.
But despite her success and comfort on the surface, she fell in the first match, on the first day, of the first round, on Court Philippe Chatrier.
This year, she entered the tournament much further down the list of favourites.
Her clay-court season had, again, gone brilliantly, with a title in Charleston and semifinal run in Stuttgart. But in that semifinal, she sustained a calf tear, a terrible injury just weeks out from Roland Garros.
It was the latest in a series of injuries which had blighted her 2023 season. A knee problem contributed to her shock second-round loss to Marketa Vondrousova at Melbourne Park, also forcing her to skip the WTA Tour’s swing through the Middle East.
Jabeur made a quicker-than-expected recovery to return in Rome, yet lost her first match.
But, as she told rolandgarros.com prior to the tournament, clay is a surface she loves, and the one on which she needs the least matches to rediscover her best level.
✊#RolandGarros | @Ons_Jabeur pic.twitter.com/MqQsWqBDKC
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 5, 2023
And, after clearing the hurdle of beating first-round opponent Lucia Bronzetti in her return to Chatrier, her Roland Garros campaign began clicking into gear.
“I'm getting back to my level. I feel like I'm moving great, and I'm feeling like it's getting better during the matches,” Jabeur said.
“The game is there. Physically I'm feeling definitely much better. Just a few things that are going to go my way probably in the next few matches.
“We'll keep working hard and improving every day.”
Boosting her throughout this fortnight has been uplifting crowd support. Not just Tunisians who “are everywhere”, according to Jabeur, but the French, too.
Jabeur is a Francophone, conducting her on-court interviews in French and also switching from English to French in the second half of her post-match press conferences.
Those fans, enchanted by her creative tennis as well as her ties to their tournament, would not be alone in wanting to see her succeed as the sport’s newest major champion.
“Let the dream continue,” said Jabeur, who now stands just three wins from a first Grand Slam singles title.
“Roland Garros – I like to say it in French accent – is very close to my heart, and a Grand Slam that I always dreamed of winning with the big girls.”