Arab Tennis:
Achievements and Shortcomings
The Arab world is not well-known for its achievements in the sport of tennis. Yet in recent memory, several Arab players have made it to the highest echelons of the tennis world.
Contrary to popular perception, tennis has a long history in the Arab world. Egypt hosted an international tennis tournament as early as 1907 and its national tennis federation was established in 1920. In other Arab countries, tennis was traditionally an elite sport played by European colonial officials in their off-time and by well-to-do Arabs at the YMCA and private clubs or hotels. Over time, tennis spread more widely and rapidly. Most Arab countries today have a national tennis federation and are able to field a Davis Cup team. And despite the fact that the Arab world does not have a grand slam champion, we have seen a few Arab players make it quite far in the sport.
The first home-grown Arab player to make international headlines was Ismail El Shafei from Egypt who played internationally during the 1960s to early 80s. In 1964, Shafei won the junior Wimbledon title. As a professional, he achieved a career high ranking of world no. 34 and reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals in 1974. Among the big name players he beat were Bjorn Borg, Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, and Arthur Ashe.
Following in Shafei’s footsteps was Morocco’s Younes El Aynaoui who stands as the highest ever top-ranked Arab player in the Open Era, having reached a world ranking of no. 14 in 2003. Aynaoui won 5 titles on the ATP men’s tour and reached the quarterfinals twice at the Australian Open and twice at the US Open. He is best known for taking Andy Roddick to 5 sets in a great match at the 2003 Australian Open quarterfinals, losing 21–19 in the 5th set.
Morocco also produced two other champions in the 1990s: Hicham Arazi and Karim Alami. Buzzing with talent, Arazi reached the quarterfinals twice at the Australian Open and twice at the French Open. His best career ranking was world no. 22. For his part, Alami had an outstanding junior career and stellar results as a professional. Tall and powerful, Alami reached a junior ranking of world no. 1 in doubles and world no. 2 in singles. In 2000, he earned a career high professional ranking as the 25th best player in the world on the men’s tour. One of his notable victories came against then world no. 1 Pete Sampras in Doha in 1994.
Since the retirement of the Moroccan triumvirate of Aynaoui, Arazi and Alami, however, Arab tennis has suffered some setbacks. The region has not been able to produce any players ranked near the top 30 in the world.
The closest player to achieve this feat has been Tunisia’s Jaziri who reached a career high ranking of 65th in the world this year. Jaziri has since slipped to no. 84 in the world, but is a regular contender on the challenger tour and often makes it into the main draw of grand slam events and other top tournaments. He was also able to defeat several highly regarded players on the men’s tour and took a set off Roger Federer in Dubai in 2013. One of his biggest achievements came this year when he reached the third round of the Australian Open.
Other top Arab talents are Moroccan star Lamine Ouahab (who originally represented Algeria) and Egyptian Mohamed Safwat. Ouahab reached a career high of no. 114 in the world but is now ranked no. 262. Safwat was ranked as high as 187 in the world a year ago but has also fallen to no. 237. A number of other North African players can be seen competing mostly in Futures events and occasionally in more prestigious Challenger tournaments.
At the moment, Tunisia’s Jaziri is by far the best of the current generation of Arab champions. But he is 31 years old and it is not clear how many years he has left. According to tennis columnist Greg Garber, tennis players today have more longevity than they did in the 1980s and 1990s due to such factors as “a better understanding of the importance of fitness and nutrition” and improvements in treatment methods that allow players to get over injuries and get back on the court. Still, it is difficult to see Jaziri continue to stay in the top 100 as he gets older, especially with so many new, powerful players coming out of the wood work in Europe, South America and the United States. Of the other Arab players, Safwat probably has the most potential as he is only 24 years old and still has a few good years ahead of him.
On the women’s side, the North African players are also at the helm. 21 year old Tunisian star Ons Jabeur is currently ranked world no. 128 and has won 7 ITF singles titles to date (but zero WTA titles). Jabeur follows in the footsteps of retired compatriot Selima Sfar who reached a career high ranking of world no. 75 in singles and world no. 47 in doubles. Well behind Jabeur are a few Egyptian players who rank roughly in the mid-400s and below. Oman also has a unique talent in champ Fatma al-Nabhani who reached a career high, season-ending ranking of world no. 372 in 2010 and is now ranked no. 451.
Farther afield are a new, younger generation of juniors who are gradually developing their games and competing in international events. A number of promising youngsters, roughly between the ages of 16–18 and overwhelmingly from North Africa, are already making a mark in ITF junior events. One Syrian player, Kareem Allaf, has also achieved good results. Some of these players may do well in years to come. In general, North African Arab countries have been more successful than Arab countries in Asia because the North African junior players are raised on clay and subject to more rigorous training methods. Geographical proximity to Spain, France and Italy has also benefited the evolution of tennis in North African countries.
Predicting the future results of juniors is difficult, especially for younger juniors. A young player’s success depends on a sustained level of interest, rapid physical growth and/or proper care. One youngster from Jordan is already showing tremendous potential and may be a champion in the making. Only 11 years old and barely big enough to hold a tennis racquet, Abedallah Shelbayh has been turning heads both inside and outside Jordan. Shelbayh won the 10 & Under GD International Cup in Turkey in 2013 and recently defeated several top ranked 12 & Under European players. He hits the ball with tremendous power and accuracy. If nurtured properly, he may be the real deal down the road.
But winning at the professional level is much harder than in the juniors, especially for Arab players. Even though the Arab world is comprised of 300 million people and 23 countries, we have yet to see a single men’s or women’s grand slam champion. Tennis fans may challenge this statement by bringing up Jaroslav Drobny, a defector from Czechoslovakia who won grand slams as an Egyptian citizen in the 1950s, but he hardly qualifies as an Arab talent. Drobny received Egyptian citizenship after he was already an accomplished international star.
What then are the difficulties that impede Arab success in professional tennis? The first answer could lie in the region’s economic and political woes. Entire countries like Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Sudan are struggling with war and poverty, affecting not only their own players but their neighbors who are deprived of regional tournaments to attend and players with whom they can compete.
But political and economic factors have not impacted the rise of top players in other parts of the world, so there may be other reasons that explain Arab shortcomings in tennis. For example, Serbia was able to produce several world champions such as Novak Djokovic and Ana Ivanovic, despite years of conflict during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. Note also that Venus and Serena Williams became legends of the game despite growing up in Compton, California, one of the most violent and downtrodden cities in the United States. In fact, if you look at the top players in both the men’s and women’s game today, you will see that many of them hail from middle class backgrounds. Some are from poor families. Maria Sharapova’s father spent time working as a dishwasher in Florida to support his family. He also shared a bicycle with his daughter to get her to the tennis courts on time.
A second factor that may explain the relative lack of success in Arab tennis is the absence of a large pool of junior players in the Arab world. According to former Jordanian tennis champion and Davis Cup star, Khalid J. Naffa, who also runs an innovative tennis academy in Amman, Arab tennis requires a much larger base of players from which a potential champion may emerge. Naffa believes that national tennis federations have to encourage schools and clubs to include tennis in their athletic offerings so that more youngsters are introduced to the game. “The pool of players in the Arab world is a lot smaller than in Europe or, say, the United States during the tennis boom of the 1960s and 1970s,” Naffa explains. He believes that the Arab Tennis Federation could help develop junior tennis by establishing a number of junior training and development facilities in key Arab cities to draw talent from all over the Arab world. Such facilities would allow top Arab juniors to compete against one another more regularly and improve their levels so that when they travel to tournaments in Europe or the United States, they are able to achieve better results.
Of course, the availability of good resources and the right infrastructure are requisites for success in tennis. Sharapova, Williams and the Serbs grew up in tough conditions, but were eventually able to access support to take their games to the next level. Players need sponsors, racquets, strings, balls, courts, coaches, trainers, gyms, clubs and probably most important of all, tournaments and regular competition. In addition, the negative factors of favoritism and infighting have to be weeded out to provide a healthy learning environment for juniors and to ensure that the best players move forward and help each other become better and better. However, even when all these factors are there, it is still not enough to produce top players.
All these elements are available, for example, in the Arab countries of the Gulf, which also hold regular international tournaments that bring in the best players in the world. Young players from the region have a great motivational example when they watch Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal compete in Arab countries every year. Still, the Gulf does not have a player currently ranked in the top 300 men in the world despite the superior resources that local players have had access to for many years now. Kuwait’s talented champion Mohammad Ghareeb achieved an impressive career high ranking of 264 and had some stellar results on the professional circuit, but is now older and winding down his career.
A possible reason for the lack of Arab champions, in my opinion, is the psychological factor. For starters, a gifted athlete is much less likely to receive encouragement than a top science student in any given Arab country. There is also a general lack of Arab self-confidence and a deeply ingrained assumption that foreign players are better. Consequently, a lot of Arab players internalize the idea that they are not good enough to win big tournaments. They often lose matches before the first ball is struck. I have seen this first hand as a former competitor and tennis fan. There is a psychological barrier that prevents Arab success even when the level of tennis between Arab players and their international counterparts is close or identical.
Without a change in mindset and approach, both on an individual level and in society as whole, we will not see any major breakthroughs in Arab tennis. The best we can hope for is a repeat of the golden era of Moroccan tennis in the 1990s, but even that seems like a very far-fetched goal at this point in time.
Ultimately, tennis is a sport. The first goal should be to widen the scope of the game and provide enjoyment and exercise opportunities for more and more Arab kids, not to produce Wimbledon champions. Young Arab boys and girls need as many outlets as possible to channel their energy and creativity. And even though tennis can be an expensive sport, it need not be if a few outdoor facilities are made available to the public at the municipal level. Having an Arab champion emerge from one of those facilities in one of the most internationalized sports in the world will give millions hope, a measure of happiness and inspiration for a better future, especially when there are so many tragedies and sources of despair in the region.
