Ons Jabeur fights off nerves to earn third round victory over Muguruza

When trying to close out the match at 5-2 on her serve, 21st seed Ons Jabeur had her first match point opportunity against 11th seed Garbine Muguruza at 40-30 in the game. The roar of the crowd was followed shortly after by Jabeur making her way to the back of the court to let go of some of those nerves. Needless to say, Jabeur closed out the game with a little bit lighter of a stomach and won the match 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 in 2 hours and 26 minutes.

The nerves should not come as a surprise considering it was her first-ever match on Centre Court, in front of royalty, against the 2017 Wimbledon champion, and her first opportunity to get into the second week of the grass-court major. Being from Tunisia, she is the first Arab woman to ever reach the second week of Wimbledon. Two weeks ago at Birmingham, she was the first Arab woman to win a WTA singles title.

A big factor which led to Jabeur’s success on Friday was her net play and shot variation. She approached the net 22 times and won 18 of those points. The mixing in of slices and drop shots kept Muguruza off-balanced and unable to find a solid rhythm and build any type of consistency in rallies.

Jabeur had 29 break point chances over the three-set match, converting on five of those opportunities. That means Muguruza saved 24 break points on her serve, which is impressive, but she was unable to do enough damage in her return games to climb back into the match.

The road does not get any easier for Ons Jabeur as she will be facing another major champion in Iga Swiatek. Swiatek has been dominant in her matches so far, only losing five games in her last two matches. The only previous meeting between the two players happened back in 2019 at the Washington Open, when Swiatek won in three sets.