There was also another brilliant match-up over in the women’s singles section last night during one of the last Round 1 ties between the 2nd seed Ons Jabeur from Tunisia & Slovenia’s Tamara Zidansek at Rod Laver Arena.
Both players have fired off really well, having fought back a couple of games & points before Jabeur won the tiebreak with an opening set lead. The same competitiveness happened over onto Stage 2 but this time it’s Zidansek who tied Jabeur at 1-1 apiece ahead of the 3rd and final set decider. In the end, Jabeur was too good to nail down her Round 1 opponent in a straight line finish. The final score was 6-7 (8-10 tiebreaker), 6-4, 1-6.
Zidansek played not bad when not only she got the ball rolling but she also fought really hard to stay in this game, particularly when that 2nd set rebound gave her the chance to upset one of the top female grand slam players in Jabeur right now. Sadly, She just couldn’t hold off till the end when a lack of all-round execution gave Jabeur the upper hand, in which as you can see where Jabeur exposed Zidansek’s main weakness during the 1st set tiebreaker & 3rd set sprint. She is ranked around 98 in the WTA Tour, so that nearly-inspired performance will hopefully improve her game throughout this year wherever she plays.
And Jabeur was glad to escape such a competitor who didn’t give her an easy run or a free pass last night. She had to stay on top of her game when Zidansek fought back at times that saw Jabeur not being able to strike down a straight sets opportunity after the 2nd stage. But she never gave up, having noticed her RD1’s opponents lack of finishing before Jabeur went on to close out such a tight 1st set & an easy end to this match.
She will now be watching on both Alison Riske-Amritraj & Markéta Vondroušová for the catch-up Round 1 tie from yesterday, as one of these players will meet Jabeur for the next round sometime tomorrow.
