Ons Jabeur broke Wimbledon’s strict dress policy by wearing a black outfit (Picture: Getty)

Ons Jabeur says she made ‘an honest mistake’ after breaking Wimbledon’s strict dress policy just before her defeat to Marketa Vondrousova in the final.

Jabeur went out to warm up wearing a black outfit and was told to go back inside to put on all-white clothes, as per tournament rules.

The Tunisian went on to lose the Championship match to Vondrousova as she missed out on becoming Africa’s first female Grand Slam winner.

Jabeur, who admits that it is the most painful defeat of her whole career, spoke about breaking the Wimbledon rule in her post-match press conference.

‘I completely forgot the white rules,’ Jabeur said. ‘When you go into a match court, you just dress up as normal clothes.

‘For me, I completely forget that today I was warming up on Centre Court, it has to be all white. Yeah, I don’t know, it was just an honest mistake.’

Jabeur has been to three of the last five major finals and is keen to focus on the positives from her second runner-up finish in SW19.

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‘I think hopefully I will be able to take the confidence out of it and consider myself as a consistent player,’ she added. ‘Take this experience as good ones, but not bad ones, to continue and improve my game. Be the player that I want to be.

‘But I know these things, maybe with me will take years. I will go for it, will put enough work for it.

‘For me, my goal is to be really a good, consistent player and whenever it’s going to come… I will learn from this match for sure, and hopefully I want to be one of the players that could win [multiple] Grand Slams, not just one.’

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‘I completely forgot…’