No.7 seed Ons Jabeur advanced to her first Roland Garros quarterfinal with a 6-3, 6-1 defeat of Bernarda Pera in 63 minutes.

Against Pera, who was playing the fourth round of a major for the first time, Jabeur broke serve in all eight of her return games and improved to 2-1 overall against the American. Her last victory in the series had been at ITF level, in the second round of the 2016 Daytona Beach W25 event.

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Jabeur will next face first-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist and No.14 seed Beatriz Haddad Maia, who defeated Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-7(3), 6-3, 7-5 in the longest match of the year so far.

Here are the key takeaways from Jabeur's landmark win.

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Jabeur hits another national milestone: Ever since her junior days, Jabeur has been a trailblazer for her country and her region. Even now, as a two-time Grand Slam runner-up, there are still milestones to hit -- and she knocked off another by becoming the first Tunisian and Arab woman to reach the French Open quarterfinals. She is the first African woman to reach the last eight here since South Africa's Amanda Coetzer made the 1997 semifinals.

Jabeur has now reached at least the quarterfinals at all four of the Grand Slams. She becomes the 15th active player to accomplish this feat, joining Venus Williams, Angelique Kerber, Victoria Azarenka, Simona Halep, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Petra Kvitova, Sloane Stephens, Karolina Pliskova, Vera Zvonareva, Madison Keys, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Elina Svitolina, Kaia Kanepi and Aryna Sabalenka, who hit that milestone the previous day.

There's a certain irony to Roland Garros being the last of Jabeur's quarterfinals, given the 28-year-old's affinity for clay, the surface on which she was raised. Jabeur was the 2011 girls' singles champion in Paris, and won her first Grand Slam main-draw match here in 2017. Two of her four career titles have come on clay - Madrid 2022, her only WTA 1000 trophy to date, and Charleston two months ago.

It was another gritty win for Jabeur: Despite the scoreline, the match was far from straightforward for Jabeur. In the previous round, where she defeated qualifier Olga Danilovic in three sets, Jabeur had described it as "a difficult day, for sure" -- and in the early stages against Pera, that continued.

There was only one service hold across the first 11 games (Jabeur in the second game of the match). In the first set, the former World No.2 landed only 47% of her first serves, and won just 24% of the points behind her second delivery.

But No.36-ranked Pera was also struggling. She won just 12 points on serve across the whole match, and only one behind her second serve. The 28-year-old tallied 33 unforced errors to only 13 winners.

Through the first half of the match, Jabeur was able to find some of her trademark magic when it mattered: a trio of drop shots to break for 3-0, a pair of sumptuous passes to break for 5-2. In the second set, she found her rhythm with her forehand and was able to power through the home stretch.

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Jabeur has accepted that injuries are "part of my path": Injuries have marred Jabeur's 2023 season so far. Knee surgery ruled her out of February's Middle East swing, and a calf issue prevented her from starting her Madrid title defence a month ago. But her belief that physical and mental health are interlinked is enabling her to tackle this.

"I have learned a lot how to accept things, either good or bad," Jabeur told press. "For me, being injured was part of my path, how the season would have started here this year. You know, I worked a lot on my mental health and worked a lot on how to manage all this, because I believe there is a lot of injuries are connected to our emotional part. I'm trying to manage that. 

"I believe that our body and our mind is connected. If there is an issue -- for example, like when you go and train hard, you have a sore muscle -- for me, the diseases or injuries are the same. Your body is trying to give you a message and you have to listen to it. 

"If the knee is hurting, there is a certain explanation for that. Maybe I'm trying to take control over things or not trying to be open-minded about some stuff. So I always try to look at the explanation of what my mind is trying to tell me. Of course, looking at the physical injury as well. 

"But everything is connected. Everything is connected with everything, either your past, your present right now. It's probably a long conversation, but briefly, it's that."

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