A few days ago, 16-year-old Malak El Alami from Casablanca became the first Moroccan woman to win a singles match at Wimbledon when she advanced to the second round of the junior draw.

El Alami, who turns 17 later this month, is currently ranked 41st in the ITF junior world rankings. She teamed up with compatriot Aya El-Aouni to win a round at the Roland Garros Junior Doubles Championship in Paris a few weeks ago.

Al-Awni entered the top 30 in the world junior rankings in May, at the age of 18, preparing to step up to the professional tour.

In separate interviews at Wimbledon this week, El Alami and El Aouni were asked about their favorite player. Without hesitation, both replied: “Anas Jaber.”

Jaber is the most successful Arab tennis player in history. She reached No. 2 in the world last year after making two major finals. On July 15, the Tunisian had the chance to become the first African-born Grand Slam champion and the first from the Arab world.

Jabeur has always reminded audiences that she is “100 percent a product of Tunisia” and her success on the world stage has inspired Lami, Aouni and countless others in the region to dream of following in her footsteps.

Egyptian Mayar Sherif reached No. 31 last month, and was seeded in a Grand Slam tournament for the first time at Wimbledon this year. Sharif says watching Jaber’s rise to the top echelons of the sport motivates her to work even harder.

It is no different for Moroccan teenagers as they embark on their own journeys.

“She’s a really cool person. When we see her here at Wimbledon, she says hello and asks about my matches and everything,” El Lamy said of Jaber, who knows El Lamy’s older sister Fatima from their days together on the junior circuit.

“It helps to see players like Ons and Mayar perform so well, because you see people from countries close to you and from cultures close to you achieving so many great things, while people always say tennis is not for us.

Alami added, “When you see them doing great things, you believe more and it motivates you to work hard.”

Aouni shines in Jabeur’s “special game” and says it is well-suited to turf, a surface that Moroccans are not very familiar with and for which he struggled this week in the junior event.

Al-Allami and Al-Awni come from tennis-playing families.

“I started playing in Casablanca before I could remember, and I fell in love with the sport,” El Alami said. “My dad is a coach, and my brothers are too, so I started playing with my brother and I started getting better, and then I got into the National Tennis Center and I’ve been training forever with them. I really hope to do great things in this sport.”

El Allami is coached by her father, Mokhtar, and her two brothers, Mohamed and Omar. She also gets help from the Moroccan Tennis Federation, which provided French coach Cyril Genevois to accompany her at Wimbledon.

She says that the federation, as well as the Moroccan National Olympic Committee, have invested a lot in her, covering her travel costs to tournaments, and providing coaches and doctors.

Wimbledon was the first time El Alami played a match on grass. She was unable to play in the junior grass court event in Roehampton last week due to delays in her UK visa. But despite feeling uncomfortable at first, her aggressive game helped her secure an opening-round victory over American Anya Murthy.

El Alami said she has gained more confidence in herself over the past two years, since she started playing well against strong opposition. She is ambitious by nature and speaks with confidence and wisdom beyond her years.

“I’m a person who, if I’m doing something, I want to be the best at it. Because if I’m doing it anyway, I might as well be the best,” she stated.

In the Junior Billie Jean King Cup 2021, Morocco ranked sixth, and that was the first for Arabs and Africa. We played with the best player in the world in our categories, which made us believe we were close and we could compete with them.” “So I think after that I started to believe more in what we can do in Morocco.”

In addition to Jabeur, El Alami also admires Serena Williams “because she has such an aggressive game and her mentality is really strong,” Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, “because everything Nadal does is impressive.”

She has not yet decided whether she will go to university in the United States and play tennis in college, or if she will pursue a career on the professional tour straight out of high school.

“The goal is to have a career as a professional tennis player. I’m not against the idea of ​​college. So, if I don’t have much success in those two years, I’ll go to university, like Mayar did, and now she’s playing really well,” El Alami explained, noting how Sharif excelled at Pepperdine University before moving up the professional circuit and moving up the rankings. “Even if you go to college and keep working hard and keeping your goals in mind, why can’t you succeed?”

El Allami trains at the SOC club, Stade Olympique Casablancais, and back home says she and El Aouny train together almost every day. “I think it’s an excellent thing because we push each other to do great things, and as we train with each other every day, when we see each other doing good, we believe more in what we can do,” she said.

However, there aren’t many others at their level, and going abroad to attend college can help her share the court with tougher opposition.

Al-Awni entered the sport of tennis through her father, Abdul Rahim, and is currently being coached by her uncle, Hamid Abdel-Razzaq.

Their families have known each other since before Malak and Aya were even born, which naturally led to the pair becoming good friends, practice partners, and teammates.

El Alami started out playing professional events for the ITF but admitted that, mentally speaking, she still has to put in work in order to get the results she knows she can achieve.

“I see some guys that, if I played them in the juniors, I’d beat them. But since I’m playing it and (I think about it now) it’s on the pro tour, it’s getting harder. I don’t know why. When I find out, I’ll break through,” she said. It’s very important that you start this transition from junior to WTA early, so you have time to adapt.”

If given the opportunity to speak properly with Jabir or Sharif, Alami knows exactly what she would like to ask him.

“I was asking Onz what made her keep believing in herself, because she won the junior Roland Garros but didn’t get high quickly in the seniors, and then 10 years later she’s done great things. So just having that kind of strength and courage is incredible,” he says. Scientific.

“And Mayar, I mean, going to college and still fighting for your goals (on the pro tour) is incredible, so I’d like to ask her how she accomplished that?”

As the legend Billie Jean King once said, “You have to see it to be.” Fortunately for Elami and El Aouni, Jaber and more recently Cherif offer an excellent blueprint for young tennis players from North Africa and the Arab world to make their dreams come true.

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