Heliopolis tournament was my second local tournament for me this year, it’s one of my favorites, and I won it for the seventh time in the last 10 years. It was tough in the final, I was 62 and 42 down but I managed to keep my cool and win 64 then 61 in the third. I didn’t play well but just enough to win, sometimes playing bad and winning is better than playing well and losing, it was another tight situation that I passed through thanks to my experience and physical abilities, without one of them I would have lost the match.
Find three of my daily healthy menus here.
It’s been a bad week for me, lost in quarter final in singles then got a minor injury that led to losing in the doubles and teams event.
I am not very lucky in that tournament, never passed the quarters since 2005, still to come some local tournaments and club matches till the end of the season.
I finished playing the last two Futures of the year held at Solaymaniah city. I reached quarter final in the first week and won the second week. I am really happy that i won the second week which was 15000 $ Future. It was tough playing there because of the courts, lots of bad bounces so it was not easy to control the match. Every match was a challenge for me, i had to play against the court (bad bounces) the other player and my mind. Playing in these kind of situations makes u tougher and tougher. In my semi final, i won 76 76, i was serving 54 first set and 53 second set. In the final i won 76 67 64 it was very tight because i was playing against a big server so it was very difficult to break or return his serve so all the pressure was on me how to hold my serve, playing against big servers is really annoying because usually u can’t rally with them, u just have to focus on holding serve and trying to get mistakes on his serve, i got my first and only break with a double fault 
I am preparing my self now for the African Cup Of Nations that will be held at Smash Academy starting the 9th of Nov. We’ll play singles, doubles and teams competitions; I’m looking forward to winning that competition for my self and for Egypt so good luck for me and our Egyptian team.
Hi everybody, it’s been a while… I just finished with my tour in Romania and Bosnia. It wasn’t so successful for me but it’s always good to gain experience and learn from every match, no matter the outcome. In the Romanian Challenger i passed quali and lost first round in the main draw, it was a match that i should have won but just couldn’t finish it off. In the Bosnian Challenger i was first out from the main draw so i had to play quali again, lost in the first round against a good player in around 3 hours 7/5 in the third, another match that i should have won but just could’nt win the big points. I was first out in doubles too so i had to wait 10 days to play the next match in the Bosnian Future. Not playing matches for 10 days gets u out of the mood of competition especially if u are hanging around the tournament’s site and not competing. Of course i practiced and played alot but playing matches is totally different. Finally, i played the Future and lost second round, another tough match that i couldn’t pass . Playing in Europe is really different especially after playing in Egypt on our so called “clay court”. It’s funny coz playing in a rainy place on real clay and with heavy balls makes a difference in my game. It’s not an excuse but i need to adapt more to it or change my game a bit because under pressure and on these courts i become more defensive which doesn’t help me alot.:) Anyway i will start preparing for the next 2 Futures that will start on the 12th of October in Cairo then the African Cup that will start in November.
The summer futures are finally over; I can say it was successful for me, semi final first week, runner up second week and winner in the third. I had a couple of tough matches in the last week both ended 7-5 in the third after 3 hours of play. I enjoyed these matches, they were mentally challenging, and in the final I was a set and 4-1 down with 2 breaks of serves and was still able to win it… I find it much better than winning in straight sets sometimesJ.
Now I am preparing for the 2 Challengers in Romania and Bosnia that will start next week. I think I am mentally and physically ready to compete there especially that I got plenty of match training in the last month. Good luck for me!
I’ve been playing tennis in Egypt for almost 20 years now, I practiced with several coaches and I witnessed the administration of 5 tennis federations. I was there when there were no international tournaments at all to play in Egypt for several years, when you had to travel all year round in order to participate in Futures, and when finally Satellites and Futures started to be played, including Cairo Open held in Gezira Club 7 years ago and the most recent years tournaments. Years passed by and still we don’t have any player in the top 100 or even 200 except for the ones who did it in the 70’s. Of course people here in Egypt start wondering why we don’t have top tennis players like in other countries.. well it’s easy to ask the question but creating such kind of top players is not that easy, especially in a game like tennis that is growing year by year and getting more and more competitive; not to mention the large amounts of money that it absorbs. We had so many good juniors over the last 15 years but as soon as they pass the junior stage it’s over. In juniors we always have a player that is in the top 50 and even top 20 but what happens when they enter the men’s circuit?! Everything changes. It’s a big difference between men’s circuit and juniors.
So what are the main reasons that prevent us from reaching a high ranking? I think sponsors and education and the system of training are the main reasons. To be a top player you need to have a sponsor who can support you financially. Sponsors don’t have to be individuals, I am talking about big companies for which sponsoring someone wouldn’t make a big difference in cost, and it would be a fraction of what they are spending on publicity. As a player you need money for equipments, traveling and for your traveling coach if you have one, tennis is very expensive in that, you need to play around 25-30 weeks of Futures and Challengers a year to really evaluate yourself and to reach a decent ranking. Imagine all the countries you have to travel to in order to achieve that, not to count the expenses of training at a high level, which is not available in Egypt until now because of the lack of experienced coaches. So how can we reach a top ranking if we don’t even play half of these tournaments and even if we do, the money you get from winning is not enough to cover the other expenses. Countries like Spain, France, Italy and America have so many tournaments that the players there don’t need to travel outside to play, a country like Italy or the States has around 30 futures and 15 or 20 Challengers and ATP series; imagine the intensity of competition they have and the number of players who compete… well it’s nearly impossible not to have top ranked players after all that!
Education is another problem; we are not a sport oriented country; what I mean is that people consider sports as a hobby not as a profession. When you are in school or university the teachers and the system don’t support an athlete because they think it’s a waste of time. Well not everybody has to be a doctor or an engineer, we have plenty. What we don’t have is a champion in tennis or in most of the other sports.
The transition from juniors to seniors is delayed because of the university period; it starts from the age of 17 to 22, the peak of any athlete actually. It doesn’t mean that if he/she doesn’t reach the best during this period then it’s over, on the contrary, a lot of players mature after that age and reach their peak around 26- 27 but at least they started early enough to be able to reach top form at that age. What happens here is that most of our players quit during university or travel to the States to continue their studies, play college tennis over there then come back to Egypt and quit tennis to pursue the carrier they studied for. You don’t have to quit studying in order to become a tennis professional (provided that this is your dream!) You can very well do both. Studying at the appropriate age while working on becoming a tennis champ can and should go hand in hand, and once you’re done studying you’re free to choose any of the two carrier paths.
Finally the training system in the country… qualified coaches are few and most of the coaches and trainers that we have never competed on a high level or even intermediate level. It’s very hard to teach someone something (especially in sport) if you never felt it or experienced it. I am not only talking about tennis trainers and coaches but fitness trainers as well. Hopefully my generation and the future one will be a new start for a better training system and coaching for the young ones.
I think that if the above three aspects are achieved we might have a chance of having a top 100 or even top 50 player in the future.
The Davis Cup tie is over; Egypt won 5-0 against Georgia. The matches were pretty easy; the team we played against wasn’t tough, it was unexpected to win that easy because they had two good players who didn’t come. I won my singles and doubles in straight sets so by day two the tie was already over 3-0. We survived another year from moving down to group three, hopefully next year will be better and we get to play our first match at home in Cairo not on the fastest indoors carpet in some cold country
Federer has made history! Roger broke all records in tennis again! He played one of the toughest mental matches in his career, this time he was playing to make history as the only player to win 15 Grand Slams. Roddick played his best tennis in his life and almost won the Wimbledon title but he just couldn’t finish it off, I think the turning point of the match was in the second set, he was 6-2 in the tie break and lost it. Being 2-0 up in the sets instead of 1-1 in a final against Roger would have made a huge difference, especially with how Roddick has been playing. Even one of the best players in the world, with the biggest serve, couldn’t win a tie break with a 6-2 lead… this is tennis
Most stress in tennis is really self-imposed and not the result of antics by the opponent. It’s difficult and not even advisable to go in a competitive match completely relaxed. Stress in itself is not bad, as long as you know how much you need to help you perform properly. The human needs a certain amount of stress to perform at high levels, the key is how to manage this stress.
There are a number of steps you can take before the match to establish the correct amount of nervousness (more….)
