A wildcard entry at a professional tennis tournament in Kenya has ignited a firestorm of criticism and a potential integrity investigation after a performance described as "disrespect to the sport."
A Record of Dismal Statistics
Unranked Egyptian player Hajar Abdelkader, aged 21, was handed a main draw wildcard for the W35 Nairobi event at the Parklands Sports Club but produced a match of startlingly poor quality. Her opening-round clash against Germany's Lorena Schaedel on the clay courts lasted a mere 37 minutes, during which Abdelkader managed to win only three points in total.
Her serving was catastrophically wayward. Out of 22 serves in the match, a staggering 20 were double faults. This resulted in a first-serve percentage of just 8.3%, barely improving to 9.1% on second serves. She double-faulted consecutively on her opening nine serves and her final seven, with only four service attempts in the entire match not resulting in a fault.
Contrast and Controversy
By stark contrast, her opponent Schaedel dominated, posting a 92.6% first-serve percentage and firing 13 aces past the struggling wildcard. Abdelkader's three points were not earned through winning shots; two came from Schaedel's own double faults, and the third when the German sent a backhand long.
The spectacle quickly went viral on social media platform X, where an eight-second video clip of the serving woes amassed over a million views. The reaction from within the tennis community was swift and severe. Randy Walker, director of the Vero Beach Futures tournament, did not hold back.
"This doesn't even need to be investigated," Walker stated. "It's just a straight up disrespect to the integrity of the sport and the promoter needs to be replaced immediately and kicked out of the sport." In a follow-up post, he tagged the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), suggesting they would be looking into the matter.
Questions Over Wildcard Allocation
The incident raises serious questions about the allocation of wildcards, which grant direct entry into tournaments, often to local players or those deemed promising. Despite reportedly taking up tennis at age 14, Hajar Abdelkader appears to have no recorded history of prior professional matches.
The W35 event in Nairobi, which boasts a total prize money pool of $30,000 (approximately £22,240), is an entry-level professional tournament on the ITF Women's World Tennis Tour. Following her emphatic victory, Lorena Schaedel advanced to face the seventh seed, Ren Yufei, in the next round.
The fiasco has put a spotlight on the governance of lower-tier tournaments and the responsibility of organisers in awarding wildcards, ensuring they maintain the competitive standard and integrity of professional tennis.
