Nabhani charts own course

“Whenever I go for a tournament,there are always people who come up and ask me what is it like to be an woman tennis player from Arabia,” laughs Fatma. She disavows the notion that as an Arab woman playing tennis has been difficult. “No one has ever discouraged me. At most,when I was young,I was not able to get partners to play with.”

That too wasn’t much of a difficulty to overcome. “It helped that I am from a tennis obsessed family. Whenever I didn’t have a partner,my brothers would chip in,” she says. Indeed all of Fatma’s family shares her love for tennis. Mother Hodal,played tennis growing up while Father Taleb still plays socially. Older brothers Khaled and Mohammed both played NCAA level tennis in the United States.

Sitting demurely in the sidelines of the event in an all enveloping abaya,Hodal travels supporting her daughter for her tournaments,around the world although India has a special connect. “Fatma’s brothers often played with Mahesh Bhupathi as boys. Mahesh’s father worked in Oman and they would play tennis in the Al Bostal club,the same club as we went to. Fatma though was still a baby when all that happened,” recalls Hodal.

Bhupathi connection

The families grew close and according to Hodal even recently when Fatma was playing juniors at Wimbledon,Bhupathi greeted the family with a big hug. While Fatma,never got a chance to get to know Bhupathi,she says she gets along well with Sania Mirza. “We met at the Grand Slams when she was playing seniors and me the juniors. But we have similar interests off the courts. She spends a lot of time in Qatar,so we do meet quite often,” she says.

Because of the few number of ITF tournaments in the Gulf and Arab region,Fatma travels a lot to South Asia in order to play tournaments. However she continues to live and train in Oman.

“My brothers studied and played in the USA,but I prefer to stay in my home country. Although I have never been discouraged to play my game,people tend to be quite surprised to know that there even is a woman player from Oman. I made people understand that women can be athletes and compete internationally,” she says. Fatma’s rise to the top 30 of the World in the juniors category surprised many people,and even got the attention of Nike who decided to sponsor her and commissioned an ad featuring her.

Indeed being the only Omani woman tennis player means there is plenty of attention and hopes placed on Fatma. That can be often be challenging. Fatma recently got a wildcard to play in the Qatar Masters this year. “There were people carrying placards and cheering for me. My first round opponent there was Jelena Jankovic. I lost the match 6-3,6-1 and I thought I had let all those people down. I know that there are going to be a lot of pressures on me. I feel the pressure,but I have to learn how to deal with it,” she says.

Fatma however seems a little awkward about all the hype surrounding her. Currently World Number 429,she knows she has a long way to go. “I was in the top 300 a year back. Then during the Wimbledon juniors last year I suffered an abdominal injury that ruled me out for many months. When I returned to the courts,this year I had to make up all the lost ground,” she says.

The Qatar Masters came in the middle of the recovery period which is why Fatma couldn’t put up a strong performance,although she takes pride in the fact that she had a better game against Jankovic than Sania Mirza who went down 6-0 6-1 to her in the next round. But for the moment Fatma has set a modest target for herself,wanting only to finish in the top 100 of the world rankings. “Goals always start small,but only then can you dream of bigger things,” she explains.