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Tunisian tennis star Ons Jabeur became very emotional following her WTA Finals win over Marketa Vondrousova and announced that she would be donating a portion of her Cancun prize money to Palestinian aid. On Wednesday, world No 7 Jabeur beat reigning Wimbledon champion Vondrousova 6-4 6-3 to improve to 1-1 in her group and keep her chances of qualifying for the semifinal alive.
But instead of celebrating her win, Jabeur wanted to address something. "I am very happy with the win, but I haven't been happy lately, to be honest with you. The situation in the world doesn't make me happy. It's very tough seeing children, babies dying every day.
It's heartbreaking. So I've decided to donate part of my prize money to help the Palestinians. I cannot be happy with just this win, with what is happening. I'm sorry guys, [I know] it's supposed to be about tennis, but it's very frustrating looking at videos every day.
I'm sorry, it's not a political message. It's just humanity. I want peace in this world and that's it," Jabeur said in her on-court interview.
Jabeur on donating money to Palestinian aid
The Israel-Hamas war has been ongoing for nearly a month and seeing innocent civilians losing life has been extremely tough for Jabeur.
In her message, Jabeur clarified that she was not expressing political support to anyone but just feeling devastated for the civilians losing lives. Jabeur acknowledged her donation probably won't mean much but hopes it will help at least a little. "I try to stay off social media as much as I can, but it's very tough.
You go through videos, photos, they're horrible, horrible photos every day. It doesn't help me sleep or recover very well and the worst thing is I feel hopeless. I feel like I cannot do anything. I wish I can have a magic hand and just end all this and just peace for everybody.
But it is frustrating, and maybe donating some money would help a little bit with what they have been going through. But I know money doesn't mean anything right now to them. So I wish freedom for everybody and really peace for everyone," Jabeur explained in her press conference.