Hajar Abdelkader, a 21-year-old unranked Egyptian wildcard, endured a nightmare debut at the W35 tournament in Nairobi, winning only three points in a 37-minute first-round loss to Germany's Lorena Schaedel. The match, which lasted little more than half an hour, saw Abdelkader serve 20 double faults from 22 service attempts, with a first-serve success rate of just 8.3%.
Abdelkader's only points came courtesy of two double faults from Schaedel in the fourth game of the opening set, and a single earned point when Schaedel sent a backhand return long in the second game of the second set. The Egyptian double-faulted on all but four of her service attempts, including the first nine and last seven consecutively.
In stark contrast, Schaedel posted a 92.6% first-serve percentage and hit 13 aces. The clay-court event at Parklands Sports Club offers prize money of $30,000 (£22,240). Schaedel will face seventh seed Ren Yufei in the next round.
An eight-second video clip of Abdelkader's serving struggles on X has garnered over a million views. Randy Walker, director of the Vero Beach Futures tournament, criticised the decision to award a main-draw wildcard to Abdelkader, posting: 'This doesn't even need to be investigated. It's just a straight up disrespect to the integrity of the sport.' He tagged the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) in his remarks.
Abdelkader reportedly took up tennis at age 14 and has no previous professional match history on record.
