Coco Gauff missed the first grass-court final on Saturday when the 18-year-old lost 7-6(4), 6-2 to Ons Jaboor in the semifinals of the US Berlin Open.
Excited by fans waving Tunisian flags amid the scorching heat in Berlin, Jabeur went 3-1 in the first set and dominated the second to reach the final against Belinda Bencic on Sunday.
“You have to be so good to beat Coco, you know. He’s a great player,” Jabur said. He said he had “no hope” of his first grass tournament of the season and paid tribute to Tunisian fans “Wherever I go they are always here, they are chanting all the time, it is wonderful,” she said.
Jabeur will play her fourth final in a season where she has risen to a career-high ranking of fourth in the world and became the first African and first Arab player to win a WTA 1000 event at the Madrid Open last month. The tournament in Berlin is their first since a surprise first round defeat at the French Open.
Next week, Jaboor is headed to Eastbourne, where she will pair with Serena Williams on her return to the American after a year.
Gauff’s race in Berlin was the closest to a title on grass, a surface on which she had not previously reached a quarterfinal, although she has twice reached the fourth round at Wimbledon. Her quarterfinal win over last year’s Wimbledon runner-up Karolina Pliskova was a special highlight.
Bencic is back in the Berlin final for the second year in a row in search of a grass-court title for the first time in seven years after a hard-fought victory over Maria Sakkari.
Bencic had to play more than three hours in the heat to beat second-seeded Sakkari 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-4 in the semi-finals.
Bencic had set the point in the tiebreaker of the first set, before his Greek opponent won the next three points to take the set.
The second set and the decider were also closely contested, with Sakkari saving four set points in the second and two match points in the third, before Bencic broke it.
Sakkari is sixth, 11 places above Bencic, but has never played a grass semi-final before.
The Swiss player has a chance to win the Berlin title after losing last year’s final to Lyudmila Samsonova. Olympic gold medalist Bencic has a 6–8 record in the final, including 1–3 on grass, the only grass title coming in 2015 at Eastbourne.
Benic led Jabur 2–1 in career meetings, all of them on clay. Jabeur lost to Bencic in the Charleston Open final in April, but a month later Madrid won their last meeting on the way to the title.
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