Arab Star Ounce fights through the pain, but shortens against Dubai’s Payton Stearns
Dubai: ONS Javaur slipped and felt pain when he crashed from Dubai’s tax-free tennis championship on Monday night, with American Payton Stearns 6-7 (6), 4 in the first round It fell to -6. Crowds on the vocal center court.
The former world 2nd Tunisian, the first Arab to reach the Grand Slam Final at Wimbledon three years ago, had been forced to miss the past two editions of the Dobite Tournament due to an injury.
However, she decided that she would be part of this year’s lineup. This marks the 25th anniversary of the landmark of a women’s event in the Emirates.
Enjoying strong support inside Dubai duty-free tennis stadium with a series of Tunisian flags scattered across the crowd, three Grand Slam finalists compete for the lead and beat Stearns in America’s first service game I did.
However, she was unable to capitalize her opponents and ranked 14th in 46th, ranked 14th in 46 games.
Javert breaks again and realizes he is on duty on the first set, but closes it and throws the racket into the ground in rage.
During a tight tiebreak, Javert’s hand gained momentum 5-6 on another double fault, and the Americans converted her first set point and charged the opener.
“Peyton is a really good player,” Jabour said. “We practice more together last year and the previous year, but yeah, she’s a tough opponent.
“She certainly has a lot to improve, but I think she’s a much better ranking than this. I hope she’s all the best for the future. She’s a match I hope that in the moments can be handled very well and that they can be done very far.”
Jabeur is a Dubai resident and was one of the most popular players on the field this week, with 36 of the top 40 women piling up.
Naturally, despite calling a medical timeout to assess her left thigh, she was eager to fight and saved three breakpoints in the opening exchange of the second set.
That wasn’t enough, and despite showing the fight that made her famous, her service broke in the third game, with Stearns holding onto to complete the straight set victory.
“Today was pretty tough,” admitted Jabert, who arrived in Dubai after the quarterfinals in both Abu Dhabi and Doha in the past two weeks.
“I was clearly not 100%. I didn’t think I had enough time to recover from both tournaments, but I was there and did my best. I don’t want to retire. That was. I wanted to see what it was like to try more.
Regarding her thigh issues, she added: “It’s not really serious. I wasn’t physically 100% of the time. I feel tired. I was hoping to be asleep, so I wasn’t sleeping.
“It was hard to really recover from Abu Dhabi and Doha, and it was difficult to come here now. It felt like a long tour for me. I wanted to play really well here. But unfortunately that wasn’t the case.”
For her, Stearns only won the second contestant with the Emirates, but he faced the challenge when it was most important to assert an 11th career victory against top 50 players.
She faces another tough test on Tuesday against China’s seventh seed Zheng Qinwen.
“I’m very pleased with myself that I stayed in the game,” Stearns said. “I fought hard, I dug deep, and all the good stuff. ONS is a great player and a great guy. It’s not fun to play someone like that, but I’m against her. I knew I had to play well.”
At the beginning of the day, No. 13th seed Beatrice Haddad Maia was eliminated by Anastasia Potapova, and No. 10 seed Dahlia Casatokina also lost 1-6, 6-4 to Romanian wildcard Solana Silstea.
2022 winner Jelena Ostapenko also slipped down in the first round, claiming a 6-3, 6-3 victory that celebrated the awards in Japan’s qualifying round.
On Tuesday, eight top seeds were running their Dubai 2025 campaign, with all four world-leading players active on centre court.
Dubai champion Jasmine Paolini met German qualifier Eva Reese in the first match of the day before world No. 2 Iga Swiecsk faced Victoria Azarenka, and third seeded Koko Gouf will face American McCartney Kessler.
The world’s No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka will be the last match on the day he meets 2022 finalist Veronika Kudermetova.
The 25th edition of the annual WTA 1000 event will run until February 22nd, prior to the 33rd staging of the Dubai ATP Tour 500 tournament from February 24th to March 1st.
