{"id":5074,"date":"2022-10-03T15:01:18","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T15:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/uae-pro-league-high-flying-sharjah-maintain-perfect-start-to-season\/"},"modified":"2022-10-03T15:01:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T15:01:18","slug":"uae-pro-league-high-flying-sharjah-maintain-perfect-start-to-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=5074","title":{"rendered":"UAE Pro League: High-flying Sharjah maintain perfect start to season"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\nAlthough she refuses to take credit for it, Ons Jabeur has played a crucial role in bringing a WTA tournament to her home country of Tunisia for the very first time, and the popular world No.2 will be the main attraction when the event kicks off in Monastir on Monday.<\/p>\n

\nThe Jasmin Open is just the second tournament on the WTA calendar taking place in North Africa and it came to life thanks to a conversation Jabeur had with IMG\u2019s Vickie Gunnarsson at the Mubadala World Tennis Championship (MWTC) in Abu Dhabi last December.<\/p>\n

\nGunnarsson, the director of IMG tennis events and tournament director of the MWTC, got to witness Jabeur\u2019s talent and charm up close when the Tunisian was brought in as a late replacement for a Covid-stricken Emma Raducanu at the exhibition event in Abu Dhabi 10 months ago.<\/p>\n

\nJabeur dazzled the crowd with her unique and playful game style and connected with the kids during the clinics and autograph sessions she took part in away from the match court.<\/p>\n

\nThe interest in tennis in Tunisia, North Africa and the Arab world has shot through the roof over the past couple of seasons thanks to Jabeur\u2019s history-making feats that saw her reach back-to-back finals at Wimbledon and the US Open this summer and become the highest-ranked Arab player and African woman in history.<\/p>\n

\nEgypt\u2019s Mayar Sherif has also played a part as she cracked the top 50 earlier this season and became the first from her country to\u00a0lift a WTA trophy\u00a0just last Saturday in Parma.<\/p>\n

\nIMG, one of the key players in the global tennis industry, recognize the potential for the sport in North Africa and Gunnarsson floated the idea of staging a WTA tournament in Tunisia to Jabeur while chatting on the sidelines of the MWTC last year.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt\u2019s the WTA sanction we had in Rio de Janeiro, which has moved a little bit; ended up in China, and now we had to find a new home for it,\u201d Gunnarsson told Arab News of the origin story of the Jasmin Open.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt was actually after Ons Jabeur came to Abu Dhabi last year and I chatted with her. I asked her, \u2018You\u2019re Tunisian and tennis seems to be booming there and you\u2019re a great role model, do you think Tunisia would be interested in hosting a WTA 250 event? It was a wild chance, right?<\/p>\n

\n\u201cShe said, \u2018Actually yes, tennis is huge in Tunisia now and it\u2019s growing, so let\u2019s give it a shot\u2019. So she introduced me to Salma (Mouelhi-Guizani), the president of the Tunisian Tennis Federation, and we started talking and Salma was like, \u2018Yes, we want to do this\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nSave the date pic.twitter.com\/1yYrz3ANZa<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jasmin Open Monastir (@Jasmin_open) September 30, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\nIMG have leased the tournament to the Tunisian federation for three years but are supporting the hosts by sending a team to Monastir \u2013 a coastal city south of Tunis \u2013 to help them put it all together.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe want it to be a success. They have an option to continue after three years and we want them to as well. Hopefully the tournament is successful here and we can continue, that\u2019s the goal really,\u201d added Gunnarsson.<\/p>\n

\nThe venue is the Magic Life Skanes hotel, a beachfront resort providing courts and facilities to host the tournament as well as accommodation, all in one site. A new 2,500 capacity center court was constructed just for the event and two more courts were transformed into show courts.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHere it\u2019s an incredible time for tennis,\u201d said Gunnarsson during a video call from Tunisia.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe had a press conference with Ons two weeks leading up to the event in Tunis and the place was packed, for a 250 tournament; everybody was there for Ons and to follow what\u2019s going to happen. It\u2019s a big deal for them, they\u2019ve never had this big of an event.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nJabeur, who does her preseason training blocks at the same venue in Monastir every year, is proud to see her homeland stage a WTA tournament and says it\u2019s a \u201cdream come true\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHonestly I\u2019m surprised with how amazing the organization is here, given how little time they had to prepare for it. I know people working at the hotel and everyone managing the hotel and the federation really want this to be successful,\u201d Jabeur told Arab News on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019m very proud that they\u2019re organizing this in Tunisia. I\u2019ve been asking the players if they need anything; it feels like I\u2019m the one hosting the tournament for some reason, I think it\u2019s an Arab thing. I\u2019m very happy with the way the tournament is going. I\u2019m very excited to play here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nIs she knocking on her fellow players\u2019 doors offering room service?<\/p>\n

\n\u201cLiterally I was going to do that. I was asking if they have the almond milk and everything. I was teasing the players, saying, \u2018Look at this beach view, you don\u2019t have this in Ostrava\u2019,\u201d laughed Jabeur, referring to the WTA tournament taking place simultaneously in Ostrava, Czech Republic\u00a0this week.<\/p>\n

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\nWhile she is aware of her role in boosting tennis as a whole in Tunisia and the Arab and African region, Jabeur believes all she did to help the Jasmin Open get off the ground was \u201cconnect the right people at the right time\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to take credit for an amazing thing that the federation did with Vickie, with the hotel, to build the center court at such short notice, with all the authorization. I feel like I didn\u2019t do anything about this, I just connected people at the right time,\u201d said the 28-year-old star.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nJabeur has taken the opportunity to show her fellow players all that Tunisia has to offer, inviting them over for vacations in hopes to boost her nation\u2019s tourism.<\/p>\n

\nMonastir hosts lower-level ITF tournaments 52 weeks a year, following a model initially adopted by Egypt, where the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El Sheikh had been doing that for years. The idea is to raise the hotel\u2019s occupancy by having tennis players around all season, while also providing young up-and-comers from the region the opportunity to contest smaller tournaments to move up the rankings without spending too much money on travel.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt gives a solid platform from the grassroots. It\u2019s very smart and it\u2019s taken them a few years to be ready to have these big tournaments; Egypt should also be ready for a big one I think, especially now with Mayar Sherif. So I think that\u2019s super exciting,\u201d explained Gunnarsson.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think on the men\u2019s side they would be up for it too, for sure I think men\u2019s tennis is also very popular here, especially on the grassroots level. The women are the most successful currently at the top but I\u2019m sure there will be men coming up as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nOn the back of Sherif\u2019s recent success, there has been interest from Cairo to host a WTA tournament and the Egyptian is keen to see tennis develop more and more in her nation.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMy whole life I believed that Egypt has incredible talent, we have unbelievable potential; we just lack the system,\u201d said Sherif.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAt the moment, we have a lot of $15k tournaments, we have a lot of ITFs, so many tournament weeks, and that encourages young players to come up. What\u2019s missing is a proper system.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMyself, as Mayar, I believe my tennis career is only the start of my journey. I really wish to help young girls come up and make it in the sport, because I believe it\u2019s very, very possible.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOns, and myself, we have given them that belief, they don\u2019t have an excuse not to believe anymore. So to stage a WTA 250 tournament in the region, for them to watch us live and to see how we\u2019re not too far, that\u2019s huge, and hopefully this will impact the next generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nGunnarsson believes success on the tennis court can only go so far and recognizes that the special qualities Jabeur possesses are the real driver behind her popularity and influence.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think she is an incredible role model. I think a lot of people can identify with her, she\u2019s very personable, a really good person, and she\u2019s funny, she\u2019s got humor, it\u2019s like she has the responses ready when people tease her or ask her questions,\u201d said Gunnarsson.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think also the Minister of Happiness thing (Jabeur\u2019s nickname); people here in Tunisia really embrace that. It\u2019s been tough times for a long time now\u2026 they needed that person to represent happiness to them and that\u2019s what she\u2019s become, especially in Tunisia.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI can see Ons here, the impact that she has, and I think tennis alone won\u2019t do it, but I think she has the character also. She\u2019s super charming and people just love that. They were joking the other day when Tunisia played a football game, they were saying they should put Ons on the pitch. Everybody is talking about Ons.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMayar seems to be a charismatic person as well, so I think she has tremendous potential to be something similar to Ons. It helps when the tennis and personality go hand in hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nJabeur will return to Abu Dhabi again this December for the MWTC, where she will face 2021 US Open champion Raducanu in an exhibition clash.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be significant. It\u2019s the best line-up,\u201d said Gunnarsson of the Abu Dhabi showpiece.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think Ons drives so much interest from the Arab world, and that\u2019s who we want to inspire in the first place. When the tournament was set up initially 13 years ago to grow the interest for sports in the region and get more people moving and active and stuff, especially Arabs.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSo Ons works perfectly for the goals of the tournaments, she fulfills all those objectives and she is a huge role model, so we\u2019re very excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nFor Jabeur, she hopes this tournament in Tunisia is just the start and hopes to see more big events pop up in the region.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHopefully we can have like a small tour of several tournaments here in Africa one day,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n