Tunisian female tennis star, Ons Jabeur won her first WTA title of 2023 after she triumphed over Swiss Belinda Bencic, 7-6 (8-6) 6-4 in the final of the Credit One Charleston Open held on Sunday in South Carolina, USA.
The 28-year-old world number five ranked player’s win over Bencic meant she enjoyed the best campaign of her career in 2022 since she reached the finals of Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, after she was sidelined due to knee injury she sustained in this year’s Australian Open.
The Tunisian’s return to the courts after the injury was marked by early exits at the Indian Wells Open and Miami Open, and she came into Charleston without consecutive wins since early January.
But at the WTA 500 event, she stormed to the final without dropping a set throughout the entire tournament.
On her way to the final, Jabuer defeated Lesia Tsurenko, Caroline Dolehide, Anna Kalinskaya and Daria Kasatkina to set up a mouth-watering clash with Bencic.
In the final, Jabuer did not find it easy as she had to fight back to break her opponent in the opening game of the first set.
Down 5-4 in the opener, Jabeur broke back at the last opportunity to keep the set alive and after falling 6-4 behind in the tie-break, she rattled off the next four points in a row to steal it.
In the second set, the Tunisian had to take her chances as she only had three break-point chances compared to Bencic’s five, but was able to convert all three, while the Swiss could only grab two.
The final was a rematch from last year’s Charleston Open title match, where Bencic defeated Jabeur in three sets, and her first title since the German Open in June, where she again had to overcome Bencic in the final.
Jabuer has so far won four singles titles on the WTA Tour, as well as eleven singles titles and one doubles title on the ITF Circuit.
She was the runner-up at both Wimbledon and US Open in 2022, becoming the first African player to reach a Grand Slam final.