Ons Jabeur certainly didn't have the start of the grass-court season that she expected, losing in her opening match at the 2023 Berlin Open.
After losing in the Roland Garros quarterfinals and later admitting that she rushed her comeback, Jabeur focused on the grass-court part of the season, which brought her first Grand Slam final last year.
The Tunisian had two weeks after leaving Paris to recover and focus on the 2023 Berlin Open. She entered the tournament as the fourth seed and in the first round, she took on one of the qualifier, Jule Niemeier from Germany.
But the German had a massive support from the home crowd and she wanted to use that against the favourite. It was the first match between the two on the WTA Tour, and for both it was an important start to the grass-court season.
In the first set, fans in Berlin so an atypical grass-court match as both players managed to break each other's serve multiple times. But in the end, none of the two managed to keep the advantage to win the set, so it had to be decided in a tie-break.
The Tunisian led 4-3 in the tie-break, but that was when Niemeier started her charge, winning four consecutive points to win the tie-break 7-4 and take the first set in front of the cheering Berlin crowd.
Riding the momentum from the first-set win, the German started well in the second set, breaking her opponent's serve. Niemeier was then almost perfect on her serve, losing only three points in the following four serve games.
Although the home crowd favourite had troubles serving the match off, facing a a break point in the tenth game of the second set. But eventually, she finished the match with another streak of points, winning the match 7-6(4), 6-4 to advance to the second round of the 2023 Berlin Open.
In the next round, the home player will need help from the crowd against as she'll play against either the 2019 Roland Garros finalist Marketa Vondrousova or the 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu.
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