Tunisian Anas Jaber, ranked seventh in the world, returned from a set down 5-2 in the second before turning the table on the fourth Greek Maria Sakkari and winning eight games in a row on her way to the semi-finals of the Rome 1,000th tournament on clay courts on Friday, which was also reached by Poland's Iga Šviontik First ranked and title holder. The German Alexander Zverev and the Greek Stefanos Tsitsihar also hit a date in the quarter-finals.
After crowning her in the Madrid 1000 last week, achieving the biggest title in her career and the second only after Birmingham last year, Jaber seemed to be going to the quarter-finals in a match that did not show her strong levels in the first half during her recent years.
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However, the Tunisian returned from afar to settle the confrontation in her favour, 1-6, 7-5, 6-1 to reach the semi-finals, where she will face either Swiss Gil Techmann (29) or Russian Daria Kasatkina (23) who will play later.
This was the third time that the two players met, and the Tunisian partnership ended up winning a match for each of them, after Jabeur beat Sakkari in the Polish Sobota/Rokytnica tournament in 2015, while the Greek won her victory in the Czech 2020 Ostrava tournament.
Jaber suffered two breaks in the first group, which the Greek won in her favour, before Sakkari repeated that twice at the beginning of the second, advancing 3-0, then in the seventh game 5-2, and there was an opportunity to decide the match on her serve.
ومع ذلك، حققت جابر عودة مذهلة وفازت بثماني مباريات متتالية في طريقها لحسم المجموعة الثانية 7-5 قبل أن تتقدم 3-0 وتنهي الأمور 6-1.