Will Jabeur become the first African Grand Slam winner?
The lines have thinned at the very eventful 136th Women’s Singles at the Wimbledon Championships and in the grand final, a player will now crown herself a Grand Slam winner for the first time in her career
Alongside unseeded Markéta Vondrousová, last year’s finalist from Tunisia has also made it to the grand final. According to the oddsmakers, Markéta Vondrousová is far more likely to win the tournament against Ons Jabeur.
Not only did Ons Jabeur eliminate Petra Kvitova and defending champion Elena Rybakina in the last two rounds, two women who have a combined total of three Wimbledon women’s singles tournament wins. The African also beat the world number two Aryna Sabalenka. The prediction that Markéta Vondrousová will become the first African player ever to win a Grand Slam tournament against Ons Jabeur is now justified.
Betting on Ons Jabeur is not a foregone conclusion, however, as can be seen from the head-to-head comparison between the two finalists. In six meetings between the Czech and the Tunisian, the balance is completely even with three wins and seven sets won.
Jabeur has already won once on grass in 2021 with a straight 2-0 win over Vondrousová. The Czech won both meetings this year. In our opinion, the most coherent bet is that this final will not be without a certain length, which is why we recommend betting on more than 21.5 games.
Markéta Vondrousová – Statistics & current form
Current world ranking: 42
Position in the seedings: unseeded
The 24-year-old Czech Markéta Vondrousová has been on the WTA Tour since 2016, but has only won one singles title since then. In 2017, she beat Anett Kontaveit in the final of a small WTA International in Biel.
The player from Sokolov, however, has lost her other major finals. At the 2021 Olympic Games, she failed to beat Belinda Bencic 1-2 in the final and had to settle for the silver medal. In the final of the French Open 2019, on the other hand, there was absolutely nothing to be gained against Ashleigh Barty in a clear 0:2 (1:6 and 3:6).
In the run-up to the event with a win percentage of just 20%
Now Vondrousová, who never made it past the second round in four attempts leading up to this year’s Wimbledon Championships and won just one of five singles matches at the Grand Slam tournament in London, is back in the final of a Grand Slam trophy for the first time in over four years. She became the first unseeded player since Billie Jean King (1963) to reach the Wimbledon final.
After the 24-year-old recorded a smooth 2-0 victory over former world champion Elina Svitolina in the semifinals (6:3 and 6:3), the Czech now only needs one more win to reach immortality. However, Markéta Vondrousová’s chances of winning the tournament against Ons Jabeur are not too good.
Won 28 of 38 singles matches in 2023
The number 42 in the WTA world rankings, however, starts into the second Grand Slam final of her career with quite solid performance data. Not only has Markéta Vondrousová already won 28 of her 38 completed singles matches in the calendar year, but these 28 victories also include two matches won against her current opponent Ons Jabeur.
However, the 24-year-old needs to improve her serve, which has been poor from time to time during the tournament. Despite a clear 2-0 win in the semifinals, Markéta Vondrousová gave up three service games in this match and won only 35% of her second serve points (eight out of 23). Values that could be her undoing in the final against the fierce African.
Ons Jabeur – statistics & current form
Current world ranking: 6
Position in the seedings: 6
Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur, 28, flew under the radar for much of her career before first attracting attention in the 2020 season when she reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open.
Just two years later, the African secured the first major title of her professional career at a WTA 1000 tournament at the Madrid Open before reaching both the final of the Wimbledon Championships and the final of the US Open in the 2022 season.
Still one win away from making history
In both finals, all the hopes of the African continent were pinned on the exceptional Tunisian player, who missed out on winning the title on both occasions. Now she gets chance number three to become the first African ever to win a Grand Slam tournament.
The 28-year-old is now even the odds-on favourite. In the run-up to the final between Markéta Vondrousová and Ons Jabeur, the odds show that the bookmakers believe she is more likely to win the Venus Rosewater Dish than her Czech opponent. The only grass-court duel with Vondrousová also went to Jabeur in the end.
Comeback win in semifinals thanks to strong second serve
The African’s incredible fighter’s heart should be credited for helping her to a spectacular comeback in the hard-fought semifinals. After losing the first set against this year’s Australian Open winner Aryna Sabalenka in a tiebreak, she won two sets in a row to win 2-1.
Once again, the key to her success was her well-considered service game. With her own service, the sixth-ranked player in the world scored in 64% of all cases in which she had to come over the second serve. The result: In the semifinals, Ons Jabeur allowed just three break points against her, two of which she even managed to fend off.
Markéta Vondrousová – Ons Jabeur Direct comparison / H2H record
Head to head: 3:3
The two players have crossed paths a total of six times so far, with both athletes bringing it to three wins each. Both meetings in the 2023 calendar year went to Markéta Vondrousová, who beat the African at both the Australian Open 2023 (2-1) and the BNP Paribas Open 2023 in Indian Wells (2-0). Ons Jabeur, however, won the only clash on grass in 2021 in the first round of the Eastbourne International (2-0).
Markéta Vondrousová – Ons Jabeur Tip
With a view to the advertised odds, the bookmakers’ prediction for Markéta Vondrousová against Ons Jabeur leans towards a title win for the African, who has lost both meetings with her Czech opponent this year, but who has also won the only encounter on grass with the 24-year-old so far outright 2-0. In addition, the Tunisian is in her second consecutive Wimbledon final and has lost just two of her last 18 singles matches at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.
The bottom line, however, is that there is a lot of risk involved in betting to win what is sure to be a close and hard-fought final of the 136th edition of the Wimbledon Championships. We therefore switch to betting that at least 22 games are needed to determine the tournament winner.
