Ready for impact: Ons Jabeur lands on Sayidaty magazine cover  

As a little girl growing up in Tunisia, Ons Jabeur remembers dreaming of becoming a professional tennis player. She also remembers afternoons spent with her mother—who was a tennis player herself, too—flipping through the pages of women’s fashion magazine Sayidaty.

Now, Jabeur is not only the top ranked Arab woman in the world, and the first ever to crack the WTA’s Top 10, she’s also landed on the cover of the largest circulating women’s magazine in the Middle East.

“I feel proud to be doing this interview, because Sayidaty has been one of my favorite magazines since I was a child, and it is my mother's favorite magazine,” Jabeur said. “I’m very happy they’ve published a dialogue with me on its pages.”

Photographed in Dubai, Jabeur traded her signature headbands and training gear for heels, jewelry and designer clothing—including looks by Egyptian designer SemSem, styled alongside luxury European labels like Boucheron, Marella and more.

The 27-year-old reflected on her slow and steady rise to the top of women’s tennis, which she said was made all the more difficult due to lack of funding. Jabeur received little financial support from the Tunisian federation, and recalled how sponsors would often balk at supporting an Arab woman.

“I faced a number of technical and financial difficulties… including the high cost of coaching and training,” she said. “I had to rely heavily on myself and the support of my husband and my family.”

She also took the opportunity to highlight the growth of women’s tennis in the Arab world—particularly in Saudi Arabia where the magazine is headquartered, and where women’s sports have enjoyed an exponential growth as a result of increased investment in recent years.

“Any Arab player’s participation in an international tournament is a source of personal pride for me,” Jabeur told Sayidaty. “Personally, I find it great to have a woman who is the president of the Saudi Tennis Federation. I had the opportunity to communicate with her once and it was a great conversation.

“I hope to see more female tennis players from Saudi Arabia, and I’ll do my best to be the best example for them.”

Jabeur is next scheduled to compete at the WTA 500-level event in Stuttgart, where she is the No. 7 seed. The Tunisian, who recently reached the final in Charleston, will take on Marketa Vondrousova in her opening match.