Ajla Tomljanovic took the second set to a tie-breaker but was unable to overcome the Wimbledon finalist.Credit:AP
Still,give credit as well to Tomljanovic,who never stopped fighting. After losing the first set and then double faulting to hand Jabeur a service break at the start of the second,Tomljanonic rebounded from 0-2 to level proceedings. From there,she even nosed in front,finally starting to force Jabeur into making errors at the end of some long rallies to grab a 5-3 lead. But her serve kept faltering at crucial moments and Jabeur’s knack for turning defence into offence enabled her to tie it at 5-5.
When the tie-breaker arrived,Tomljanovic held her own for the first seven points,but then at 3-4 she coughed up another double fault giving Jabeur the mini-break that she needed,en route to a 7-4 win in that final confrontation.