In June 2021, Tunisian Anas Jaber entered history after she became the first Arab woman to win a WTA tournament, and today she was very close to consolidating this achievement when she came close to achieving her first title in one of the four Grand Slams, but she lost the Wimbledon final to Kazakh Elena Rybakina for two sets. for one.
Despite losing the Wimbledon final, Arabs consider Anas Jaber as the uncrowned champion. A few days ago, she became the first Arab and African to reach the final of one of the four Grand Slam tournaments for women’s tennis.
Jaber said in statements after the loss that she was “very sad, but in tennis matches where there is only one winner, I wanted to win.”
The Tunisian ranked second in the world achieved an unprecedented achievement for Arab and African tennis by qualifying for the Wimbledon final in English tennis, after defeating German Maria Tatiana.
Jaber, 27, played Wimbledon in high spirits after being crowned champion in the Berlin grasscourt tournament on June 19.
Jaber began drawing attention to her during the Australian Open in 2020 (78 globally and was the first Arab player to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Grand Slam tournament).
In June 2021 (24 globally), she won the Birmingham tournament, thus becoming the first Maghreb player to achieve this feat.
Little by little, the Tunisian woman from the coastal city of Kasr Hilal (east) gained “experience and confidence, and many players became afraid to confront me” in her estimation.
Anas, or “Minister of Happiness” as Tunisians call her, was born in the city of Qasr Hilal (east) on August 28, 1994, in a family consisting of two young men and two girls, the youngest of them.
She started playing tennis since she was young in Hammam-Sousse (east). She started her first steps in the tennis promotion center at school with her coach at the time, Nabil Malika.
At the age of twelve, Jaber moved to the capital, Tunis, to train at the Sports Institute in El Menzah (a government that includes elite athletes) to start a new path in her life.
It is known that Anas has a special style of play in the way she deals with her competitors during the match and is looking for beautiful presentations, “She hates playing in one format, always looking to create a spectacle by diversifying playing with shots that surprise the opponent, especially through fallen balls,” according to Malika, who confirms She is “actually the queen of the drop shot a long time ago”.
In statements before the Wimbledon final, Jaber saw that her first major title in her career against Rybakina would be a double joy, “because Saturday is Eid (Al-Adha), and it is my favorite holiday. It is like Christmas for us.”
And the world number two revealed that winning Wimbledon was not her dream, “I won’t lie to you, winning Wimbledon was not my childhood dream. My childhood dream was always to win the French Open (on dirt in Roland Garros).”
“We did not have grass pitches in Tunisia, so I did not imagine myself in Wimbledon in my childhood. But it became a dream when I reached the quarter-finals last year, because I loved everything about Wimbledon,” the 27-year-old daughter of Tunisia’s Ksar Hilal added.
Her arrival to the Wimbledon final comes after a disappointing participation in the French Roland Garros, the second Grand Slam tournament, where her career ended in the first round, and after her absence from the Australian Open due to injury.
Jaber was one of the most prominent candidates to win the Roland Garros title, especially as she was coming from crowning the title of the 1,000th Madrid Tournament on clay courts and reaching the final of the 1,000th edition of Rome as well, where she lost to Šviontec.
Jaber is known for his boldness and strictness in playing and he does not hesitate to stop playing in the match and ask one of the fans to remain silent so that you can focus.
She is cheerful and always seeks to comment in her own way, as she has the audacity to ask to listen to Tunisian rhythms and songs after every match she won during the Berlin tournament, which she won last month. The official responsible for the activation in the stadium interacted with her, and specially broadcast for her a clip from a song by the Tunisian rap artist “Balti”.
She is very active on social media and publishes videos and photos of part of her private family life with her husband, the physiotherapist Karim Kammoun, as well as her celebration of her victories after each session.
She is 1.67 m tall and rests on her right hand. She has been married since 2015 to the former fencing player and her current physical trainer, Karim Kammoun.