Tunisia's Ons Jabeur beats former world no.1 Halep to reach Madrid semi-finals

Tunisian tennis player Ons Jabeur has reached the semi-final of the Madrid Open after beating the former world number one  Simona Halep, in an exhilarating match on Wednesday.

Jabeur, who ranks tenth in the world, beat her Romanian counterpart in straight sets- winning 6-3 6-2- in a match played in only one hour and seven minutes. Halep is currently the world's number 20 female player.

The Tunisian player will face the world’s number 40, Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova on Thursday, where a win could see her in the tournament’s final.

Ons Jabeur: "Today is Eid, so I just wanted to wish all the Muslims #EidMubarak.

"I won and it’s a great party for us today. So Eid Mubarak to every Muslim in the world." #MMOPEN pic.twitter.com/CDWbB3GK9L

— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) May 2, 2022

On Monday, Jabeur won the quarterfinal match against Switzerland’s Belinda Becic with two sets to one, coinciding with Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

Jabeur told reporters: "Today is Eid, so I just wanted to wish all the Muslims Eid Mubarak. I won and it’s a great party for us today. So Eid Mubarak to every Muslim in the world."

Jabeur, who trains in the capital Tunis, became the first ever Arab female tennis player to earn a Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) title last year, when she won the 2021 Birmingham Classic.

She is also the highest-ranking male or female Arab tennis player in the sport’s history, and the first to reach the Wimbledon’s women’s quarterfinal, which was also achieved last year.

In 2020, she became the first Arab woman to reach a grand slam quarterfinal at the Australian Open.

Jabeur was named Arab Woman of The Year in sports in 2019 and was lauded for auctioning her Wimbledon tennis racket last July, in a bid to raise Covid-19 relief efforts in Tunisia.