Enjoying the game is key to success, says UAE’s Abdulrahman Al Janahi

Dubai: UAE’s Abdurrahman Gyanasi’s performance at the Dubai Tennis Championships may have been cut short after a first-round loss, but the Emirati player is confident about the future of the sport in his country and says key to growth It’s about enjoying the sport.

“This is my fourth year at the Dubai Championships, and although I’m more of a singles player, I do enjoy my doubles partner with Kareem Al Allaf,” said the 28-year-old Emirati, who has shifted his time to tennis. And work as an engineer in Abu Dhabi and Korea in between.

“One of the good things about every year when the Dubai Open comes around is that we’re in the environment of a tournament. Whether it’s playing with a partner or getting a wild card to play in a tournament, we interact a lot with the players. Practice with them and you’ll Seeing how different the levels are, the level of focus required, the commitment,” Al Janahi said.

American Al Allaf is a former Abu Dhabi resident who lives in the United Arab Emirates and represented Syria in junior tournaments before moving to the United States to play at the University of Iowa.

“It’s a dream come true for me. I grew up in Abu Dhabi. I played in all the junior tournaments here. I tried to ask if I could play in this tournament. I felt like this was my chance. Thanks to Salah Tahlak and the UAE Tennis Federation, especially Abdulrahman Al Janahi, who helped me get a wild card for the singles qualifier. Today we will play doubles at home in front of friends and family. It was a great experience,” Al Allaf says

The wild card’s first partnership didn’t end as they might have hoped for, but still learned a lot from their games with Tomislav Brkic and Gonzalo Escobar, who went 6-1 and 6-3.

“From today’s doubles match, you can see how focused their game is on doubles, so we said let’s focus on these things,” the Emirati star added.

Al Janahi believes that the UAE Tennis Federation’s efforts to find the right talent in the coming years will bear fruit as the golden generation of Emirati players headed by former UAE number one Omar Behroozian move forward in their lives.

“Finding talent is the current priority. We do have a lot of talented players from Kareem’s generation, who are prodigies in UAE tennis. We do have our golden player, Omar Behroozian, number one in the UAE, so to speak Is the highest-ranked tennis player in the UAE. Then we had Hamad and after that it was just me. We don’t have any prospects for the current juniors, but we will have something in the next few years,” he added.

Over the past few years, the UAE Tennis Federation has been holding various local tournaments to increase the number of next-generation players. Al Janahi feels a key factor he would like to see is taking the pressure off these rising stars and allowing them to enjoy the game.

“In the last year and this year, they’ve been building that support back, there’s a game every fortnight, a local game that’s going on. It’s just for the young people to enjoy the game. A lot of them, the young people, because The pressure and a lot of expectations that are put on them without enjoying it. Getting them to understand and focus on how to enjoy it better can help with that,” he concluded.