Tunisian tennis star Anas Jaber joked with Spanish tennis legend Rafael Nadal and asked him for tickets to attend the match between his compatriot Real Madrid and his guest Manchester City on Wednesday at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final.
After Jaber, ranked tenth in the world, took revenge on Swiss Belinda Bencic and beat her 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 on Monday to reach the quarter-finals of the Madrid Tournament of the Thousand on clay courts, she expressed her encouragement to Real Madrid, who is trying to overturn its back lag. 3-4.
Last week, Nadal, holder of 21 major tennis titles, scored an honorary kickoff in the match between Real Madrid and Espanyol, before the capital’s team crowned its 35th title in the League.
“I don’t have tickets or anything. But I know a nice guy named Rafael Nadal who can get it,” said Jaber, who became the first Arab woman to make it to the top ten list.
“You can ask them to play our two matches at the same time, and then we go to support Real Madrid against Manchester City… My coach and my husband want to go too… they need me, let’s go. Hala Madrid!”
Last month, Jaber fell in the final of the Charleston Championships against Bencic, who won the gold in the Tokyo Olympics, in a three-set match that lasted two hours and 35 minutes, to be denied the crown of only her second title in her career.
The Tunisian also took revenge on Bencic, who knocked her out of the same role in Madrid last year, to achieve her first victory over the Swiss in the third confrontation between them.
Jaber, 27, will face the two-time champion in 2016 and 2017, and former world number one, Romanian Simona Halep.
The Tunisian is still looking for her second title after winning the Birmingham English tournament on grass last year, when she became the first Arab player to win a title in the WTA tournaments.
Jaber and Halep (21 globally) will meet for the fourth time, but the first on clay courts, and the Romanian beats Tunisia 2-1, the last of which is in the quarter-finals of Dubai this year and the round of 16 in the same tournament in 2020, while the Arab player achieved her only victory in the 64th round of the Beijing tournament. 2018 when the Romanian withdrew after losing the first set.
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