Tunisian Ons Jabeur beats world number one tennis champ Simona Halep in Beijing

World number one Simona Halep struggled to shake off the effects of a back injury, which led her to retire from the first round of the China Open against Tunisian player Ons Jabeur on Sunday.

Halep suffered a big defeat in her first round against a strong and determined Jabeur who beat her 6-1 in the first set.

However, Jabeur looked visibly upset after Halep decided to retire, but has now bagged two top ten victories in her career.

“I didn’t want the match to end like this. I wanted a real battle. Unfortunately she was injured. I didn’t look happy because I didn’t want to win this way,” said the Tunisian.

“But, of course, I take the win. I hope next time we can play a real match without anyone injured,” she added.

Halep said that she was worried about her back injury, and that she would go home and do an MRI.

“The muscle is better, the muscle of the back. But now I started to feel yesterday in the bones. So it’s really tough when you have back injury because you cannot bend, you cannot react at the balls. All the body was really contracted. I couldn’t play,” she said.