“The happy place became my sadness”: Ons Jabeur explains why she needed to step away from tennis

Ons Jabeur, the Tunisian tennis star explained in Riyadh this week why she decided to take an indefinite break from tennis after Wimbledon 2024. Speaking at the WTA Finals, where she appeared as an ambassador, Jabeur said she needed time to recover both physically and mentally after two demanding seasons on tour. “The happy place, the place where I find my joy suddenly became my sadness,” the former world No. 2 said.

Four months later, Jabeur is back—not as a player, but as an ambassador for the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The 3-time Grand Slam runner-up has been open about the reasons behind her decision and the importance of prioritising her mental and physical health. “I feel it's time to take a step back and finally put myself first: to breathe, to heal, and to rediscover the joy of simply living,” she said.

Since stepping away, Jabeur has stayed active off the court. “My break is going well. I’m discovering life a little bit outside tennis,” she told The National. “I’ve been busy with different things — the foundation, the academy. I’m trying to maybe launch new projects as well, so it’s been fun.” Those new ventures are more than side projects; they represent a shift in how she defines success.

At first, the change of rhythm was strange. “When your body is used to like six hours, seven hours of training a day and then you suddenly don’t do anything, I was like, ‘What am I doing?’” she said. But as time passed, she found joy in small routines and in spending time with her family — something her demanding schedule rarely allowed.

The decision to pause her career came after two challenging years marked by injuries and disappointment. “Trying to find something that makes me happy outside tennis was difficult,” she explained. “The happy place… became the place that gave me depression. And I was kind of scared, thinking, ‘What if I never find joy on the tennis court ever again?’”

For now, Jabeur has not set a return date. “I just want to enjoy and when my mind and body tell me you’re ready, you want to come back, then I will come back,” she said. Her comments make it clear that her comeback will not follow a fixed timetable but her own sense of readiness.

Her message resonated across the tennis community. Many fellow players, she revealed, reached out to express that they saw themselves in her words. “Basically, other players seeing themselves in what I was feeling. I felt like I was not only helping myself, but I was helping them as well.”

When Jabeur returns, she plans to take control of her schedule. “I want to choose my tournaments. I want to make the schedule adapt to me, not me adapting to the schedule,” she said. Her focus will be on maintaining balance and preventing burnout.

“I will honestly try to speak up more and get the tennis community to treat us better as players, to treat us more as human beings than robots that play tennis, tennis, tennis all the time,” she added. It’s a statement that echoes a wider discussion among players about the sport’s long calendar and mental strain.

Away from competition, Jabeur has been working on two major initiatives — the Ons Jabeur Foundation and the Ons Jabeur Academy. “I want to live a meaningful life, not just breathe and eat and do nothing on the side,” she said. The foundation’s first project involves rebuilding the tennis court at her old primary school in Tunisia.

Her academy, set to open in Dubai later this month, will focus on personalised training and youth development. “Maybe it’s a way for me to find the joy again on the court,” she said. “Seeing the innocence of the kids, there’s nothing better than that. I want to train there with them and see how it goes.”

Jabeur’s plans for the future are clear — to return when she’s ready, play with joy, and make a lasting difference off the court. “The belief is there,” she concluded. “But even if I don’t get back to where I was, I won’t put that much pressure on myself. For me, the most important thing is that I’m gonna go there, I’m gonna try, and I’m gonna be happier on the court.”