Ons Jabeur has quashed fears that she has officially retired from professional tennis after taking an indefinite break from the sport. The former world No. 2 announced her hiatus in an emotional statement in July, explaining that she had to “take a step back” and enjoy “living”.
The Tunisian tennis star is one of the most popular faces on the tour with colleagues, fans and staff. But she’s also suffered her fair share of heartbreak, losing three Grand Slam finals, two of which came at Wimbledon. Jabeur has barely touched a racket since taking her break in July, but the 31-year-old is adamant that she will eventually return to the tennis court.
For now, Jabeur is back on the tour in a new role. The five-time title winner is at this week’s WTA Finals in Riyadh as an ambassador for the season-ending event. It’s the first time she’s been on-site at a tournament since announcing her hiatus.
The former world No. 2 has still been busy away from the tennis courts, and she’s enjoying a more regular life. One of the main reasons Jabeur stepped away from the tour was “to rediscover the joy of simply living.”
It was something she struggled with while competing week in, week out. Since taking a break, Jabeur has launched her own foundation and is now preparing to open an academy in Dubai – but she’s not done with professional tennis just yet.
“My life since I was six years old was always focused on my training, my tournaments, tennis, and I didn’t feel like I, even though I did things outside tennis, it was always either tennis-related or if I want to go on vacation, you always need to count the days because you don’t want to miss training. You want to go back on time,” Jabeur told The National.
“I wasn’t ever free from tennis. Trying to find something that makes me happy outside tennis was difficult and given the very tough two years that I had, it wasn’t easy.
“The happy place, the place where I find my joy suddenly became my sadness and basically became the place that gave me depression. And I was kind of scared, and I was thinking like, ‘What if I never find joy on the tennis court ever again?’
“But I don’t think that will be the case. And I’m not retiring like most of the people think, I’ll be coming back someday.”
While Jabeur is still keen to return to competition, she has picked up a racket just once since taking a pause, during a kids’ clinic. And she’s in no rush to jump back in.
She added: “I just want to enjoy and when my mind and body tell me you’re ready, you want to come back, then I will come back.”
When the three-time Grand Slam finalist does return to the tour, she’d also like to do so on her own terms, picking her own schedule. “I feel I want to choose my tournaments. I want to make the schedule adapt to me, not me adapting to the schedule,” Jabeur explained.
“I will honestly try to speak up more and get the tennis community to treat us better as players, to treat us more as human beings than robots that play tennis, tennis, tennis all the time.
“This is a very beautiful sport and we need to be smart about it. And I just want to be myself on the court. I don’t want to feel the stress. I felt so good for the last two, three months that I’m not stressed.”
