Ons Jabeur has announced the “difficult decision” to call time on her 2025 season following a year of injury struggles for the Tunisian.

The former world No 2 has not played since the Canadian Open since the beginning of August, where she fell to a straight-sets defeat to Naomi Osaka.

Jabeur had previously pulled out of the Washington Open the previous week, and then went on to withdraw from both the Cincinnati Open and the US Open towards the end of the month.

In a statement released on social media earlier today, the 30-year-old revealed that the year had been “extremely hard” for her, but prioritising recovery time was the right decision.

She wrote: “This year has been extremely hard for me and as athletes, we know that recovery is part of the journey.

“Due to my ongoing shoulder injury, my medical team and I have made the difficult decision to step off the tennis circuit for the rest of the season.

“While I’m taking time to heal, I’ll be dedicating myself to charity work and ensuring that we make a real difference in the world. Thank you for all your support, and I can’t wait to come back stronger.

“And I will see you back on the court in Australia 2025.”

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Jabeur has played 30 matches in 2024, winning just 16 of them in a year that has seen her slip down the WTA Rankings.

The Tunisian was beaten heavily in round two of the Australian Open by Mirra Andreeva, and from February to early April embarked on an unfortunate five-match losing streak.

There were positive signs across the latter part of the clay court season, where she seemingly sparked into life with runs to the quarter-final at both the Madrid Open and Roland Garros.

However, she was unable to build on that at Wimbledon on the grass, with the 2022 and 2023 runner-up falling to Elina Svitolina in round three – and falling out of the top 10 as a result.

Having not played since early August, Jabeur now finds herself down at 22nd in the WTA Rankings, the first time since 2021 that she has not been inside the top 20.

She finished 2023 as the world No 6 and will fall further down the rankings towards the end of the season, once her WTA Finals points from 2023 are removed.

Jabeur reached her first Grand Slam quarter-final at the Australian Open in 2020 and will hope she can kickstart her 2025 resurgence with a similar run in Melbourne next January.

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