The tennis world has been shaken up by an incident that occurred this week at the W35 ITF event in Nairobi, Kenya, leaving many fans and pundits speechless.
Earlier on Wednesday, January 7, a video surfaced on social media showing a clip from one of the matches in Kenya. Featuring Egyptian wildcard Hajar Abdelkader and Germany’s Lorena Schaedel, Abdelkader became the talk of the town for the tennis she showed on the court. Or rather, the tennis she did not show.
The clip, only eight seconds long, showed the Egyptian struggling to even hit a serve, and then struggling even harder when it came to returning the ball once it was hit to her. As expected, the scoreline turned out to be 6-0, 6-0 in favor of Shaedel. The stats from the match showed that her opponent won only three points in the entire match, all in the first set because of errors from Shaedel.
Abdelkader also hit 20 double faults in the match, which lasted a mere 38 minutes — which many fans thought was still too long a time to hand her a defeat. The original clip went viral on X, garnering more than 1.8 million views and nearly 3000 likes.
Andre Agassi and Coco Gauff’s ex-coach Brad Gilbert was among many who saw the viral clip, and he could not help but be scandalized by such an incident happening in pro tennis.
“Wow that is shocker,” Gilbert wrote.
Other fans also commented their hilarious takes, some comparing it to other pro players and others calling the whole ordeal disrespectful to the sport.
“Ostapenko when she doesn’t play Iga,” one fan joked.
“This doesn’t even need to be investigated. 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. This was a MAIN DRAW wild card entry into a W35 and the “player” is from Egypt,” another chimed in.
Here are a few more reactions from fans:
“The most surprising thing of all is that the match was 38m long.”
“This is surreal stuff… are you kidding me???”
“The other person needs to retire immediately for losing 3 points.”
More Tennis World Reactions To The Internet-breaking Incident In Nairobi
WTA player Ellen Perez also took to X to comment on the incident, joking about how she was still engrossed by the match to watch a good chunk of it.
“Not proud to admit I watched a good 10mins of this match,” she said.
When asked if she had any advice for Hajar Abdelkader, Perez joked:
“She just needs a better racquet that’s all.”
Interestingly, Grand Slam champion Bianca Andreescu will be in action at a W35 event in Antalya later this month, hoping to play herself into form in the lower rungs of pro tennis instead of participating at the Australian Open.
