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Tunisia’s Jabeur Beaten in Monastir Quarter-finals

Tunisia's Ons Jabeur returns a ball as she plays against US' Claire Liu, during the final quarter of the WTA Jasmin Open, in the Tunisian coastal city of Monastir on October 7, 2022. (Photo by BECHIR TAIEB / AFP)
Tunisia's Ons Jabeur returns a ball as she plays against US' Claire Liu, during the final quarter of the WTA Jasmin Open, in the Tunisian coastal city of Monastir on October 7, 2022. (Photo by BECHIR TAIEB / AFP)
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Tunisia’s Jabeur Beaten in Monastir Quarter-finals

Tunisia's Ons Jabeur returns a ball as she plays against US' Claire Liu, during the final quarter of the WTA Jasmin Open, in the Tunisian coastal city of Monastir on October 7, 2022. (Photo by BECHIR TAIEB / AFP)
Tunisia's Ons Jabeur returns a ball as she plays against US' Claire Liu, during the final quarter of the WTA Jasmin Open, in the Tunisian coastal city of Monastir on October 7, 2022. (Photo by BECHIR TAIEB / AFP)

World number two Ons Jabeur failed in her bid to land the first ever WTA tournament to be held in her homeland Tunisia when she lost 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 to American Claire Liu in Monastir on Friday.

Top seed Jabeur went into the quarter-finals in irrepressible form having dropped just nine games in her previous two matches against the American Ann Li then the Russian Evgeniya Rodina, AFP reported.

But she was handed a surprise defeat by Liu, ranked 71 places below her, who came into the tournament in good form. The 22-year-old from California reached the quarter-finals in Tokyo in mid-September and was a finalist in Rabat in May.

Liu broke Jabeur's first service game and held on to that advantage to take the opening set.

The Tunisian favorite managed just 45 percent on her first serves but, in spite of further problems in the second, bounced back to level the match.

The errors continued in the third set - both players clocking 51 unforced errors in the match - with Liu edging the Wimbledon and US Open runner-up.

In the semi-finals, Liu will face Belgian Elise Mertens who needed two hours to wear down the 21-year-old Japanese player Moyuka Uchijima 6-0, 3-6, 6-4.

The other semi-final will pit Frenchwoman Alize Cornet against 12th ranked Russian Veronika Kudermetova.

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Swiatek is in Total Control during a 6-1, 6-0 Rout of Raducanu

18 January 2025, Australia, Melbourne: Polish tennis player Iga Swiatek celebrates her victory over Britain's Emma Raducanu during their women's singles third round match of the Australian Open tennis tournament at Melbourne Park. Photo: Joel Carrett/AAP/dpa
18 January 2025, Australia, Melbourne: Polish tennis player Iga Swiatek celebrates her victory over Britain's Emma Raducanu during their women's singles third round match of the Australian Open tennis tournament at Melbourne Park. Photo: Joel Carrett/AAP/dpa
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Swiatek is in Total Control during a 6-1, 6-0 Rout of Raducanu

18 January 2025, Australia, Melbourne: Polish tennis player Iga Swiatek celebrates her victory over Britain's Emma Raducanu during their women's singles third round match of the Australian Open tennis tournament at Melbourne Park. Photo: Joel Carrett/AAP/dpa
18 January 2025, Australia, Melbourne: Polish tennis player Iga Swiatek celebrates her victory over Britain's Emma Raducanu during their women's singles third round match of the Australian Open tennis tournament at Melbourne Park. Photo: Joel Carrett/AAP/dpa

Everything came so easily for Iga Swiatek during a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Emma Raducanu on Saturday in the only Australian Open women's third-round match between two past Grand Slam champions — if you thought that meant it would be close, you'd have been rather wrong — that this was how she described it:
“I felt like the ball,” The Associated Press quoted Swiatek as saying, “is listening to me.”
Loud and clear. Asked to explain that sensation, Swiatek put her two index fingers a few inches apart and said, “It’s just being able to aim for this kind of space.” Then she spread her palms more than a foot apart to show that's the margin for error on other days.
The difference, she said, comes down to “being more precise and actually knowing where the ball is going to go, seeing the effects that you want it to.”
When the five-time major champion and former long-time No. 1-ranked woman — now No. 2, behind Aryna Sabalenka — is at the height of her powers, as she sure has seemed to be in Week 1 at Melbourne Park, it is hard for anyone to slow Swiatek down.
The heavy-spinning, high-bouncing forehands. The squeaky-sneaker scrambling to get to every shot. The terrific returning. And so on.
Against Raducanu, who won the 2021 US Open as a teenage qualifier, Swiatek played at a level she called “perfect.”
Indeed, Swiatek mounted a 24-9 edge in winners, made only 12 unforced errors — roughly half of Raducanu's 22 — and claimed 59 points to 29. That caused one spectator to yell out, “No mercy!” in the second set as Swiatek was reeling off the last 11 games after the match was tied at 1-all early with not a cloud in the sky and the temperature approaching 80 degrees Fahrenheit (above 25 Celsius).
“I think it was a little bit of her playing well, and me not playing so well,” Raducanu said. “That combination is probably not good.”
Swiatek, who agreed to accept a one-month suspension in a doping case late last year, owns four trophies from the French Open and one from the US Open. But she’s never been beyond the semifinals in Australia; she lost in that round to Danielle Collins in 2022.
A year ago, Swiatek was upset in the third round by teenager Linda Noskova.