Bacsinszky ends Jabeur's historic run in Roland Garros third round

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  • Positive in defeat: Ons Jabeur.

    Ons Jabeur says she walks away with positives from this year’s French Open after her historic run in Paris came to an end at the hands of Swiss No30 seed Timea Bacsinszky on Friday.

    Jabeur, who is the first Arab woman to ever reach the third round of a Grand Slam in singles, fell to Bacsinszky 6-2, 6-2 and admits she wasn’t physically up for the task following a tough match in the previous round.

    The 22-year-old Tunisian had taken out No6 seed Dominika Cibulkova in the second round – her first top-10 win – and was looking to enter the second week of a major for the first time.

    But Switzerland’s Bacsinszky, a semi-finalist at Roland Garros in 2015, proved too strong for Jabeur and wrapped up the win in a mere 67 minutes.

    “I couldn’t find my legs today. I don’t know where they gone. Maybe my sister played today. I’m not sure it was me,” said Jabeur after the match.

    “It was a little bit tough. I mean, I was trying to really play and put the ball in. Physically, I was not there. And if I’m physically done, then mentally affected me a little bit.

    “But I’m a little bit disappointed with finish like this because it was really good tournament for me. I was trying to make it to a third set, but it was a little bit tough at the end. But still happy with my performance here. And I’m going to work even harder to be ready for the other Grand Slams, I hope.”

    Marching on: Timea Bacsinszky.

    Marching on: Timea Bacsinszky.

    Jabeur, who is the first lucky loser since 1996 to reach the third round of the French Open, started by breaking Bacsinszky’s serve but the Swiss retaliated immediately. The No30 seed had to save a break point to hold in game five then capitalised on a poor service game from Jabeur to inch ahead 4-2.

    Bacsinszky consolidated and got three set points on the Jabeur serve at 5-2. The 2011 Roland Garros junior champion saved the first with an overhead and the second with a down-the-line forehand winner.

    The third was saved with a killer down-the-line backhand winner but double-faulted when she had game point to hold for 3-5. Bacsinszky got her hands on a fourth set point and this time, she wouldn’t let a Jabeur drop shot fool her, as she ran it down and found the winner to take the opening set in 32 minutes.

    Bacsinszky broke for a 4-2 lead in the second, using the weapon Jabeur had been using against her – a deadly drop shot. And the Swiss never looked back, completing a dominant victory to set up a fourth round against Venus Williams.

    Jabeur admits it was tough to regroup after her big win over Cibulkova but she was not short on motivation against Bacsinszky.

    ”I honestly tried to forget my win against Cibulkova yesterday because I had to move on a little bit. And it was tough because everyone sees me says, like, Congrats, congrats. I’m like, Okay, it was yesterday. I’m trying to forget about it,” she explained.

    “And I don’t want people think that I won yesterday that today I gave up or something. I didn’t want to do that. I just wanted to play my game, but I just physically wasn’t ready. I played six matches, I think, and it’s really long.”

    Jabeur says there were plenty of lessons learnt from her history-making efforts in Paris and she’s looking to do even better at Wimbledon.

    “I honestly learned that even when you lose, you have to believe that maybe you get in again as a lucky loser. And just have to believe in yourself even if you play a top 10,” she said.

    “You just have to believe in yourself and you believe that she can be not – it can be not her day that day. You can be better. And you have to believe in yourself as much as you can.”

    Bacsinszky had faced Jabeur before, in Oeiras in 2014, and knew what to expect from the crafty youngster.

    “She’s kind of trying to make a surprise on every point,” explained Bacsinszky. “You don’t know what you’re going to get, so you have to be awake every time. You cannot just relax and just wait for it to happen.

    “Because if you leave her play, then, I mean, I think you can be pretty quickly in a pretty bad position during the match.”

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