Victorious Jabeur delighted that she stuck to Plan A

LONDON: After letting last year's Wimbledon final against Elena Rybakina slip through her fingers when she started to doubt her own tactics Ons Jabeur said sticking to the plan, even in adversity, was key to her revenge victory on Wednesday (Jul 12).

The Tunisian sixth seed came back from losing the first set tiebreak to beat the world number three 6-7(5) 6-4 6-1 to reach the semi-finals.

Unlike in her previous round victory over Petra Kvitova she mostly eschewed her famed slice and dice approach and instead went toe to toe with one of the hardest hitters in the women’s game.

She began to question the approach after losing the tiebreak but stood firm and eventually ran away with it as she took eight of the last nine games.

"Sometimes someone like Elena pushes you to play different plans but I'm glad that I did stick to the one we agreed on," Jabeur said.

"After the first set I kept yelling at my coach saying, 'You told me to play like this and look what's happening'. She was putting a lot of pressure on me so I'm very, very glad that I stayed focused. I turned the anger into me focusing and taking command of the game.

"But most of all I think I was hitting fast. I was thinking 'If you want to hit hard, I'm ready to hit hard, too'".

Jabeur said the pain of last year's final defeat, where she won the first set, and then her straight sets defeat to Iga Swiatek in the U.S. Open final contributed to her being able to better deal with the pressure on Wednesday.

"Last year maybe I wasn't ready to play this kind of match," she said. "I don't regret last year, it happened for a reason, but it’s given me a lot of experience dealing with different situations in matches, learning how to handle it. That helped me a lot with the game today.

"I