On her own feelings at the moment
Honestly, I don’t want to be frustrated. I always try to be positive in this situation. There’s a lot of things going on, maybe this is a good reason for me to stop maybe a little bit and work out more. I can improve a lot of things on me. So, I am trying to be positive, it’s not only me, it’s a lot of players. Let’s see how this season is going to go. Honestly, I am doubting how they are going to put all the tournaments together. But, really, I am trying to stay positive. Okay, I had a good run but if I have it in me, I think I will have it as well in a few months, I believe in that.

I mean in the beginning of the days, when everything started, I was kind of frustrated with the tournaments gotten cancelled like a month or before they were to take place. I was like: what’s the reason to cancel right now? We don’t know the situation then. I mean of course, no one thought that the Coronavirus was that serious at the beginning. But then I mean honestly, I am trying to stay positive in my whole life. Either my personal life or my professional life because I don’t have any control over the situation. So why should I get frustrated over something I can not control, you know. 

On how this will affect her ranking
I think I am lucky enough that this happened right now, after the quarterfinal at the Australian Open. If it happened like 2-3 years ago, probably I would be in a very, very bad situation. So, I think the opportunity I got to play that Grand Slam and to play good in the past few tournaments… I am honestly looking forward to play that season, to start again but I don’t think. I mean I have an opinion about this season since Wimbledon is cancelled, the French Open, I don’t know how they are going to do it in September.

For me, this is bad because I had no points to defend right now until the French Open so for me it’s not a good situation. But then for others it’s good because they had points to defend at Miami or Indian Wells and okay, it’s gone now. What are they going to do about it?

On whether the season should resume at some point this year
I don’t think it’s a good idea to start the season this year. Maybe start with some team tournaments, some tournaments for the players to be able to win some money – like team matches – at least they can play but not points. And then start the season again next year in March. For example, let’s pretend that the end of 2020 was never here you know. Then don’t start by playing the Australian Open since we already played it this year and the other tournaments in the beginning of the year and then start from Indian Wells, where everybody stopped. It’s fair for the other Grand Slams, it’s fair for the points and for everything.

Well, honestly, I think, September is going to be where everything is going to start, because okay, let’s say even if we start in July – what about the other tournaments? What about the other Grand Slams if we can play around 2 or 3 Grand Slams for a year and just skip the other one? How is it fair for the points, how is it fair for the other players if we even play until October, the weather in Europe is not good. The weather in New York is not good in October. That’s quite challenging with the weather. Everybody lost a lot of things. Well we don’t stop playing tennis, we will start playing tennis again, but not with the ranking.

Ons Jabeur was speaking exclusively to Eurosport's Tennis Legends podcast alongside Noah Rubin. Download the full podcast from Thursday evening (23 April).