W100 Cairo is just the start for Egyptian tennis

With hundreds of ITF tournaments staged all across the globe each year, it may be easy to overlook the impact just one event may have on a country or a region. Yet a mere 10 hours spent at the new women’s $100k held in Cairo this week was all it took to realise the huge significance of the occasion for Egypt’s growing tennis scene.

It’s the first time a tournament of this level is taking place in the Egyptian capital and players and fans are equally excited. Former top 25 players like Lesia Tsurenko – whose face is plastered on billboards across the city – and Irina-Camelia Begu are in town, looking to make their way back up the rankings after recent injuries set them back.

Talented teens like Ukrainian 17-year-olds Daria Snigur and Marta Kostyuk came to Cairo hoping to take the next big leap in their budding careers, while Turkey’s Cagla Buyukakcay chose this tournament as her first event in three months after a bout of mononucleosis forced her to skip the start of the season in Australia.

A TALE OF THREE EGYPTIANS

But perhaps the best way to understand why this event means more than points and prize money is by shedding the spotlight on the three Egyptian women who contested the main draw this week: Mayar Sherif, Sandra Samir and Lamis Alhussein.

The trio attracted buoyant crowds to the courts of Zed Elsheikh Zayed and played their hearts out during their first rounds on Wednesday.

Sherif, who is the first Egyptian woman in history to crack the top 200 and hit a career-high 188 this month, avenged her defeat to Kristina Kucova from earlier this year, by overcoming the Slovakian in straight sets to claim a maiden victory at a W100 tournament.

The 23-year-old, who is poised to make history for Egypt in Tokyo this summer by becoming the first woman from her nation to compete in tennis at the Olympic Games, is thrilled to see Cairo hosting its first $100k – a $60k is also taking place at the same venue next week – and feels the tournament can help instil belief in the younger generation.

“It’s a great opportunity. The home advantage plays a part of course. But what’s more important is that it’s great to see this level reach Egypt,” Sherif told itftennis.com.

“The younger players, the up-and-comers, they can witness this level first hand, they can try to compete against these kind of players and to believe that the level is not so far and that it’s not unattainable.

“This is a point I think we need to look at from a different perspective – that we can beat these people, we can compete with these people, we just need to compete with them more. That’s the thing, nothing is impossible and anything can happen in tennis.”

NEW BEGINNINGS

Egypt’s No.2 Samir is not short on belief these days. The 22-year-old, who was ranked as high as 13 in the world as a junior, has had a bumpy ride in her transition to the pros but has started this season with a new sense of purpose, partly inspired by Sherif’s exploits in 2019.

“For so many years I was No.1 in Egypt, for like at least five years. I was 300-something (in the rankings) and No.1. So for me, I couldn’t see beyond that,” explains Samir.

“I knew I will get there eventually but I couldn’t see it. And when I saw Mayar, I was like, ‘It’s there’. It actually pointed out what I have to work on and I think she did me a huge favour (by breaking through).”

With a goal of cracking the top 200 by the end of the year, Samir had a near miss in her opener in Cairo on Wednesday, holding three match points and serving for the victory twice before she fell in three sets to Lesley Pattinama Kerkhove. Her family and coach were courtside watching – a luxury she doesn’t usually have when she’s on the road competing – and she’s grateful an event like this one gave her the opportunity to showcase her talents in front of a home crowd.

“I think this tournament brings a lot of attention to us, to tennis in Egypt,” says Samir. “It’s an individual sport and it’s not as popular as other sports here, but it sheds a lot of light on tennis, how it is, what do we do, our tennis players from Egypt when we go outside to play these tournaments, what do we do, how it goes… so everyone here gets a close look of what it means for us to be out there by ourselves. Now we’re here at home, so it’s nice.”

TOUGH INITIATION

For Alhussein, her debut at this level came against the tournament’s fourth-seeded Tsurenko, who is down at 129 in the world rankings due to an elbow issue that kept her out of action for the second half of the 2019 season but was at a career-high No.23 exactly 12 months ago.

The 21-year-old, who is in her last semester studying finance and accounting at Cairo’s Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, lost the first set easily but stepped up in the second, breaking the Tsurenko serve twice before succumbing in straights.

“It was unbelievable, it was an incredible feeling. The first few games I felt like I was playing at a completely different level to her. I usually play $15ks, so to get a wildcard from ZED Club to play a $100k main draw and play against a player who used to be ranked 23 in the world was something I couldn’t believe,” says Alhussein.

“I wanted to play a good match, to produce my best tennis. It was very tough at the start because she is experienced and I was tight, I couldn’t hit the ball, the pace of her ball is fast, there’s a difference between our levels. But then I told myself I’ll loosen up and things would go well and thankfully I ended up playing a good match.”

Alhussein had never faced a player ranked inside the top 300 prior to her clash with Tsurenko. She was a promising junior, ranked as high as 68 in the world junior rankings, but could not afford to travel to play the Grand Slams. She has struggled to juggle tennis and studying but plans on dedicating herself solely to the sport as soon as she graduates this spring.

“This tournament gives me the chance to believe in myself,” she says. “I need to have more confidence in myself. At the start, I felt like the match was so far away from my grasp, I was going to try as hard as I could, but I felt it’s still so far.

“But then I saw her making mistakes. When we watch these players on TV, we cannot tell how tight they are in reality and we can’t see the real reasons behind the mistakes they’re making on court. But when I was on court against her today, I saw that she makes mistakes, she makes good points, just like us, she’s a human being, who can hit and can miss. That shows us that we are closer than we think. But those who believe in themselves and who work harder are the ones who will make it.”

NO SUBSTITUTE TO ROLE MODELS

Tennis has always been popular in Egypt, but the country lacks funding and structure that is necessary to develop young talents. Massive sellout crowds watched Justine Henin take on Nadia Petrova at the historic Gezira Club in 2009, and thousands showed up for an unforgettable exhibition event staged at the foot of the Giza Pyramids that featured the likes of Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and Anna Kournikova back in 1998.

But to have passion for a sport is one thing, and to actually have role models from your country paving the way for you is another. The former helps you get started and the latter encourages you to continue and to strive for more.

Sherif is providing a blueprint for other young girls to follow, and her rise coincides with the impressive ascension of her countryman Mohamed Safwat, a 29-year-old who clinched his maiden Challenger title in Launceston, Australia last Sunday – the first Egyptian to do so since 1996 – and is at a career-high ranking 130.

Alhussein’s eyes light up when asked about Safwat and Sherif, and what their achievements have personally meant to her.

“For me, Safwat is an icon. I see him and I feel, ‘Wow, this guy is a monster on court’, I don’t know how he is like that,” she gushes.

“How does he have the belief that even if the younger players are better than him, he’ll still make it? He set himself a really big goal. The first time I traveled with him was the African Games last August. I was watching his matches; he’s calm and focused and there isn’t a mistake he is making that he doesn’t know why it’s happening.

“He was determined to win that tournament and he deserved it.

“Mayar proved to all of us that tennis in Egypt exists. She proved to all people, in Africa and in Egypt and everywhere that we are here, that we can do something, but you just need to give us a chance and finance us so we could travel and play tournaments.”

‘IT’S JUST THE START’

That last phrase is precisely why staging big tournaments in Cairo can play a huge part in boosting the local scene. Not many players can afford to travel to events every week and the recent investment from Ora Developers (owners of the Zed Elsheikh Zayed project) in the Egyptian tennis calendar will provide plenty of playing opportunities for local players.

“We made this trophy because we want this event to be annual and each year we’ll have the name of the champion added to this trophy,” says tournament director Mohamed Ghazzawy, who is the man behind the hundreds of ITF tournaments hosted in the Red Sea city of Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt over the past decade.

“We’re going to do it every year. We’re having conversations about how we can make this calendar bigger, and how we can host a WTA event, and how we can build other courts, with a centre court, so we could host a proper WTA tournament. That’s what we’re aiming for.

“When Mayar finished college [last year] and started playing $15ks, when I saw her breaking through, I started seeing the women’s calendar as a main goal for me to grow here in Egypt.

“I see this tournament as just the start of something much bigger.”