Jabeur shows she has the guts to come from a set down to defeat Muguruza

By Paul Lagan on Centre Court at AELTC

Ons Jabeur v Garbine Muguruza

5-7, 6-3, 6-2

Ons Jabeur is rapidly becoming a star of the women’s game. And Centre Court was the place for her to show her talents to a world’s audience.

But with talent, comes excitement and tension.

And tension exploded quite literally from her mouth on her first match point – she raced to the back of the court and threw-up.

But she won in style, coming from a set down to beat number 11 seed Garbine Muguruza 5-7, 6-3, 6-2

The set’s opening games were of typical grass court quality, but with longer baseline rallies.

Neither player was comfortable with a serve and volley and thus the match progressed as expected.

But the tension suddenly rose in the 10th game of the first set, with Muguruza 5-4 up and serving for the opening set.

But nerves got the better of her and she palpably tightened up.

She also fell crashing to the ground – thankfully uninjured to leave her opponent at break point.

The Venezuelan-born Spain national, responded by winning the next point after a deep left-hand cross-court saw the Tunisian slam wide.

That gave the former Wimbledon champion the impetus she needed to see out the set but she double-faulted at the crucial moment.

Taking the next point to deuce, saw her make a critical error to hit the ball into the net.

But Jabeur failed to take advantage, hitting a slow second serve wide. 

The longest game of the set, continued when Muguruza miss-hit the ball wide. She recovered once more to take it back to deuce.

Another double-fault restored advantage to Jabeur.

This time Jabeur made no mistake, but Muguruza did, hitting her forehand cross-court shot wide.

That restored the match to 5-5.

Somewhat anti-climatically, Jabeur then went on to lose easily her serve, thus allowing Muguruza to finish the set off to love and take the first set 7-5.

Jabeur dug deep  in the second set, breaking Muguruza to make it 5-3, but she too choked at the pivotal moment, going love 40 down. But she managed to pull her composure into line and won five points in a row to level the match 6-3.

An instant break of serve by Jabeur continued her ascendency and Muguruza became visibly frustrated.

But she managed to just about hold her serve to keep the deciding set at 1-2. As much as Muguruza tried to change tactics,  Jabeur responded – again breaking in the fifth game to make it 4-1.

With a fortunate line call by the umpire going her way, Jabeur took the game to leave the former champion serving to stay in the championships.

This she did. But after two hours and 26 minutes of a pulsating match, a clean drive down the line was enough to give Jabeur the necessary point, the game, the set and the match.

She plays Iga Swiatek for a place in the quarter-finals.