Tearful Ons Jabeur retires at Wimbledon through injury
A tearful Ons Jabeur was forced to retire from Wimbledon through injury, less than 90 minutes into her first-round match on the opening day.
The Tunisian crowd favourite is a two-time runner-up in SW19, losing a final-set decider to Elena Rybakina in 2022 before being stunned by unseeded Marketa Vondrousova 12 months later – after which she was consoled on court by the Princess of Wales – having entered both finals as a heavy favourite.
Now 30, her search for a maiden grand slam title, having also made the US Open showpiece in 2022 where she lost to Iga Swiatek, goes on and the drought won't end at the All England Club this summer.
Jabeur trailed 7-6 (5), 2-0 to Bulgarian world No 111 Viktoriya Tomova when she was forced to pull out, having been in tears before receiving treatment during a long medical timeout in the first set.
The former world No 2 had looked uncomfortable in fiercely hot conditions out on Court 14 and suffers from asthma, while also enduring breathing difficulties at this year's Australian Open.
'I wasn't expecting not to feel good,' said Jabeur after withdrawing. 'I have been practising pretty well the last few days but I guess these things happen.
"I'm pretty sad, it really doesn't really help with my confidence and what I keep pushing myself to do even though it was a very tough season for me. I hope I can feel better and see what is going to happen.'
Injuries have seen the immensely likeable Jabeur plummeted to outside the top 50 in the world rankings after a shoulder issue led to a premature end to her 2024 season and, just three months into her return, she hobbled off court in tears at this year's Miami Open after suffering a leg strain.
She is unlikely to be the only player struggling in the heat, with temperatures expected to reach 34C at Wimbledon, forcing the All England Club to institute its warm-weather policy which comes into effect when temperatures exceed 30.1C and means an extra 10-minute break between sets two and three in women's singles and three and four in men's singles.
All England club chief executive Sally Bolton also revealed other measures being put in place, saying: "Obviously it's a very warm day. The first obvious point to make is that the athletes compete in temperatures like this all year on the tour. For us Brits here at the championships it feels very hot. We do have the heat rule available to us, which is well used on the tour.
"Beyond that we've got protocols in place for the ball boys and ball girls on court. They've got cooling scarves, we'll be rotating them more if we feel we need to.
"For colleagues working around the grounds we've got plenty of changes in shift patterns to make sure they're getting regular breaks.
"And for the guests that will be joining us we're offering the same advice as lots of the medical professionals - come prepared, bring a hat, wear sunscreen, wear light clothing if you can, take breaks out of the sun. We've got over 100 water points around the grounds so definitely stay hydrated, and keep an eye on your friends and others around you.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Wimbledon diary: strawberry sandwiches, pricey rackets and Oliver Tarvet's expenses
'Where are the strawberries and cream?' was among the more unexpected questions for one of Wimbledon's army of volunteer stewards as the crowd streamed through the gates on Monday morning, given that the answer is 'absolutely everywhere you look'. It was a different story, though, at the local branch of Marks & Spencer, where 300 packs of the chain's specially commissioned strawberry & crème sandwich, a staple food for influencers on Instagram and TikTok in recent days, ran out shortly after 9am. A sample did make it into the media room, however, and while strawberries 'paired with whipped cream cheese on sweetened bread' might sound like the losing team's product idea on week two of The Apprentice, it has to be said … it's very edible. There was an air of genteel bedlam in the main Wimbledon shop as the first wave of merch-hungry tennis fans poured through the doors in search of SW19-branded booty. The demand for hats and towels was, not surprisingly, rather stronger than that for sweatshirts and hoodies, and no one at all seemed inclined to lug around one of the giant tennis rackets – designed to be hung on the wall, apparently – that are the most expensive single items in the shop at £600 a pop. And why would you, when you can get a self-inflating cushion – a genuine masterpiece of cutting-edge design that does exactly what it promises to do – for £582 less? Wimbledon's post-match media conferences can tend towards the formulaic – in the post-Nick Kyrgios era, at any rate – but there was an unusual twist in Oliver Tarvet's debrief after his excellent opening-day win against Leandro Riedi, as a 30-second chat about the match itself gave way to an in-depth discussion of the US collegiate system's rule limiting an athlete's annual earnings to $10,000 (£7,300). Tarvet, who is at San Diego University, is guaranteed at least £99,000 for reaching the second round and will now aim to spend as much of it as possible to get below the limit. 'I will try and do everything I can to make that work out and to find X amount of expenses so I'm under $10,000 of profit,' he said. 'I've got to find £60k, £70k of expenses. Tennis is an expensive sport so, hopefully I can make that happen. Just pay my coaches a little bit extra, I don't know. We'll figure something out. Fly business class. No, I keep humble, but yeah, really try to make that happen.' One of the more persistent – if understandable – annual breaches of Wimbledon protocol appears to have been consigned to history (along with the line judges) at this year's tournament: the running-while-looking-like-you're-not dash from gate three to the kiosk selling returns from the show courts as soon as the gates open at 10am. The simple solution – so simple that you can only wonder why it did not happen years ago – was to move the kiosk from its old spot by the Garden Café, on the far boundary of the site, to a new location … right next to gate three. 'We had to get lots of stewards in to try to get people to stop running,' an official mused while watching the new system working flawlessly on Monday. 'It wasn't very Wimbledon.' Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Tennis-goers at Wimbledon are used to spending a fair part of their day looking nervously skywards but, for one day at least, players and punters alike were hoping for a cloud or two to offer some blessed respite from the 30C heat. Keeping cool was a constant challenge and one to which Daniil Medvedev, the No 9 seed, epically failed to rise. His rackets paid a heavy price for his surprise defeat by Benjamin Bonzi, as Medvedev took out his rage on both his chair and his bag, though he was more philosophical in the media room. 'Physically, it was not easy,' he said. 'To make a winner against him today, I had to make like, three great shots in the corner. I will never say he won because of the heat, but the heat is not easy to play. I do think, if you ask him, probably he was not enjoying the heat either.'
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
Wimbledon's myth of elitism
Many were the jibes when Boris Johnson announced that he was 'thrilled' to be back on the tennis court in 2021 as lockdown restrictions eased. 'Bloody posho poncing about on a tennis court' or 'how typical' were probably some of them. Sir Keir, naturally, made sure that he was photographed on a football pitch on the same day. But here's the thing: these days, playing tennis isn't posh. Yes, chins love to watch it and play it – helped by tennis courts of their own – but the playing of tennis has become democratised. Reports of next-gen community tennis clubs springing up all over the country have become widespread, according to the Financial Times. And yet tennis has always had a class problem. Long viewed as a pastime solely for the aristocracy and middle classes, tennis has good reason to be associated with the elite: think ice cubes rattling away in the clubhouse, membership at vast prices, immaculate tennis whites, lots of free time during the day. It's hardly surprising that as a sport it produces feelings of revolutionary ire in some people. To add to this, the major tennis tournaments played in this country – Queen's and Wimbledon – are profitable because they play on these associations of elitism and old-school money: strawberries and cream, Panama hats, dress codes. Crowds love Wimbledon not just for its tennis but also for its raging gatekeeping snobbery, while the Queen's Club doesn't have to do much more than put up a few cordons to give people the feel that some necessary exclusion is going on somewhere. But if British tennis tournaments play on their toff overtones for profit, the pros themselves tell a totally different story. British players who qualify for Wimbledon are anything but posh – and proud of it. Take Liam Broady and Dan Evans, both top-ranking British players, who have risen through the gritty ranks of the tour on little to no financial recompense, a lot of sweat and some long-suffering parents willing to drive them around the country at weekends. Broady, the cheeky chappie from Stockport who delighted the centre court crowd back in 2023 by telling his mum to 'chill out' because he had 'already won 80 grand', briefly became something of a national treasure. Dan 'Evo' Evans, the self-styled bad boy from Birmingham, lived with a host family in Loughborough at the start of his career – far from manicured private courts and a clubhouse. Andy Murray, arguably Britain's most successful tennis player, began his ascent on the drizzly tennis courts of Dunblane, a town not known for its tennis culture. When this country did, finally, produce a posh tennis player in the shape of privately educated Old Dragon Tim Henman, the media went wild for his Oxfordshire middle-class credentials. At the peak of his career, Henman inspired public frenzy as the Daily Mail and other titles went wild for his inscrutable, Panama hat-wearing father Tony, his lovely Pony Club wife Lucy, and – rather mysteriously – his looks. The British love tennis precisely because it is a familiar choreography of our class struggle, kept within the tramlines But I always felt rather sorry for Tim Henman, a man who came to represent far more than the tennis he played: a rare beast who elided the public perception of tennis with his ambition. In 1999, Pat Cash, earring-sporting Australian and former Wimbledon champion, declared that Henman would never make it because he was 'the product of the middle classes' and 'didn't have the stomach for a fight'. How very unfair of Mr Cash – but also, as it turns out, so canny of him to underline the nation's hopeful obsession with Henman as our desire to see sport and player reunited in the same class bracket. So why the social dissonance between the sport and its professionals? Who gains? Certainly not the professionals, who bemoan the sport's middle-class straitjacket – and certainly not the Lawn Tennis Association, who have long disputed the 'white, male and stale' perceptions of the sport. This 'negative' view, they claim, deters young players coming up through community outreach schemes, leading the Guardian to state that there 'will never be a Marcus Rashford of tennis'. In his book A People's History of Tennis, David Berry attempts to counter the monocultural record of the sport, arguing for its radical nature that has always attracted maverick visions of femininity and politics – pointing to the socialist tennis movement of the 1970s, when there was briefly a 'Worker's Wimbledon'. Personally, I'm not convinced that we want tennis to be radical. The British love tennis precisely because it is a familiar choreography of our class struggle, kept within the tramlines. Boris knew it when he lumbered onto a tennis court that day – and we know it when we switch the box on for Wimbledon. As a social game, we're always at love-all without an umpire.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Grigor Dimitrov dating history: Who has the tennis star been in a relationship with?
GRIGOR DIMITROV has endured an injury-hit year - but his relationships continue to be headline-grabbing. Here we take a look at the Wimbledon star's life off the courts. 7 Grigor is a professional tennis player who spends much of his life on the ATP Tour. Born May 16 1991, in Bulgaria, Grigor is yet to win a major Grand Slam title, but he has certainly won the hearts of some of Hollywood's most beautiful stars. Eiza Gonzalez (2025 - Present) 7 Rumours surrounding Grigor's love life resurfaced in recent months following speculation of a burgeoning romance with Eiza Gonzalez. The world No 21 and Hollywood actress Eiza went public with their relationship in April at the Madrid Open. The tennis star received a celebratory kiss from Eiza on the cheek after he defeated Nicolas Jarry to reach the fourth round. The actress, who is 35 years old, shot to fame as Monica 'Darling' Costello in the 2017 hit Baby Driver, alongside Ansel Elgort. The Hobbs & Shaw actress is from Mexico and gained popularity in Spanish-language television and films before going to Hollywood. There has been no official confirmation on their relationship status. 7 Wimbledon 2025 LIVE - follow all the latest scores and updates from a thrilling fortnight at SW19 Madalina Ghenea (2023) Before finding love with Eiza, Grigor spent over a year single, following the end of his relationship with Madalina Ghenea. The Bulgarian tennis star started dating Madalina at the start of 2023. 7 Throughout their relationship, the Romanian was often seen supporting her beau at some of the biggest games of his career. Despite her busy schedule as a supermodel and actress, having starred as Sophia Loren in the series House of Gucci and alongside Ed Westwick in Deep Fear, she was often courtside. Nicole Scherzinger (2015-2019) Grigor and former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger started dating in 2015, with their relationship going public in 2016. 7 Nicole is no stranger to a sporting love interest, with her former long-term relationship with Formula 1 GOAT Lewis Hamilton and current relationship with former rugby international Thom Evans. But from the moment their relationship became known, they faced scrutiny and rumours around whether they were still together. Busy schedules and countless rumours of break-ups plagued their relationship, which eventually ended in 2019. Maria Sharapova (2012-2015) With life on the tour, the idea of dating a fellow tennis player would seem enticing due to the difficult schedules. 7 That's why the long-term relationship of Maria Sharapova and Grigor seemed like the "perfect match". The couple started dating in 2012, and their relationship became public in 2013. The highest-paid sports woman in the world, at the time, was five years older than Grigor, who was only 23 during their relationship. However, after three years together, the couple broke up due to their "split paths". Serena Williams (2012) While this relationship is only speculated by fans, Serena Williams was rumoured to be dating the tennis star in 2012. The couple never officially confirmed their relationship and still speak regularly, according to Grigor.
