Over two decades, three Moroccan men – Younes El Aynaoui, Karim Alami and Hicham Arazi – were all ranked in the top 25 in the world tennis rankings.
Together, Morocco’s ‘Three Musketeers’ formed a golden generation that put the North African nation and the Arab world on the global tennis map. They each won ATP titles and matches at Grand Slams (Arazi and El Aynaoui made multiple major quarter-finals) and were popular figures on the tour.
While Tunisian Ons Jabeur has taken Arab tennis to new heights, making history as the highest-ranked African woman in history (she peaked at No 2 in the world) and reaching three Grand Slam finals, Morocco has yet to produce players with success at the top level since the Three Musketeers.
On Sunday at the US Open though, three young Moroccan players provided a glimmer of hope for a brighter future.
Karim Bennani, Reda Bennani, and Malak El Allami, were all flying the flag for Morocco at the US Open juniors this week in New York.
Karim and Reda, who are not related but are best friends, took part in boys’ singles, while El Allami competed in the girls’ singles draw.
Karim and El Allami both won their first rounds, while Reda exacerbated a right knee injury he picked up in a warm-up tournament in Canada and was forced to retire in the second set of his opening clash.
Karim, who turned 17 on Tuesday, is the youngest of the trio. No 73 in the world junior rankings, Karim wasn’t planning on making the trip to New York, given he isn’t ranked high enough to make it directly into the boys’ singles main draw. He got a last-minute call from the International Tennis Federation offering him a spot on their touring team so he could fly to the United States and compete in the junior qualifying rounds.
Karim lost in the second round of qualifying but received another welcome surprise when someone pulled out of the main draw, allowing him to slide through as a lucky loser. The Moroccan teen made the most of that opportunity, defeating Italy’s Jacopo Vasami 7-5, 6-3 on a humid day at Flushing Meadows.
"I was so happy to play in the main draw, I was saying to myself, ‘Just go and play, have fun, no pressure’," Karim told The National on Sunday. "And here we are, I’m in the second round playing against the No 2 seed and ex-world No 1 Kaylan Bigun.”
Karim lost to Bigun on Monday but walks away from New York with lots of lessons learned, carrying great pride in representing Morocco alongside his compatriots.
“I’m really happy to see other Moroccans in the draw and I hope one day to play here in the main event, the senior one, together with other Moroccan players,” said Karim.
Karim was introduced to tennis by his father at the age of three and says he fell in love with the sport right away. He grew up idolising Roger Federer and tried to imitate the Swiss legend’s groundstrokes while hitting forehands and backhands against the wall.
He wanted to hit a one-handed backhand like Federer but his father insisted he hit with two hands.
“Roger is an incredible inspiration for me,” he said.
Karim is well aware of the legacy of El Aynaoui, Arazi, and Alami, and dreams of replicating their success down the road.
“For the moment we’re still in juniors, but let’s see if one day I can be like them, that would be amazing. I’ll try do my best to reach that level,” he said.
Karim does high school online and still has one more year before graduating. Many Arab teens opt to take the college tennis route and he is not ruling out the possibility of going to university in the United States.
“I have so many good opportunities from college tennis, I have Harvard that want me,” he said. “But for the moment I’m still focused on playing pro because I think I have the potential to go pro.
“I’m practicing. If I cannot make it, then I’m going to go to university and then try again to go pro after that. But the main goal is to go pro directly and to have the ranking.”
El Allami faced the same dilemma before opting to attend Columbia University and play for their team. The 18-year-old, who is ranked 37 in the world junior rankings, just started her freshman year and had to skip orientation to play, and win, her girls’ singles first round at the US Open.
Moving to New York to attend college can already be an overwhelming experience, but doing so while also preparing to compete in a Grand Slam is a whole other beast. El Allami somehow figured it out though as she claimed her first US Open juniors win on Sunday.
“It was tricky but I put my practices first. So unfortunately I missed out on a lot of orientation events and getting to know my classmates but there are some priorities in life and after the US Open, I’ll be able to do that, so it’s fine,” she said.
El Allami decided to postpone turning pro and chose to attend college after seeing many professional players emerge on tour after going to university. The likes of Danielle Collins, Emma Navarro, Ben Shelton, and Cameron Norrie, all played college tennis before switching their focus to the WTA and ATP tours.
She chose Columbia for more than just tennis reasons.
“It’s in New York, so I think the opportunities to grow as a person and an athlete are very wide,” she said. “So that was a big part of why I chose Columbia. Also I really like the team and the coaches and the atmosphere there. So I think it’s somewhere where I could become better.
“It’s the city that never sleeps, they’re always working. I think if you can make it in New York, it’s very competitive, so if you can make it here, you can make it pretty much anywhere.”
El Allami has known Karim and Reda since she was five years old and she admitted she was following Karim’s US Open result while she was beating Capucine Jauffret in three close sets. She’s thrilled to be sharing this Grand Slam experience with them.
“These guys, I grew up with them. So it means we’re going the right way and also it means a lot especially because I know them. So it’s like our dreams are coming true and I hope we can keep doing that in the seniors and keep going and improving, taking each other up there,” she said.
She is aware many eyes back home are firmly fixed on the Casablanca trio and hopes they can all follow in the footsteps of the ‘Three Musketeers’.
“It would mean a lot. In Morocco people do want that, they are behind us and they really want us to represent Morocco in the highest stages. I think we would make them very happy if we can do that and we are working very hard to do that,” said El Allami.
She is considering studying political science and economics at university and plans on playing in some events on the professional circuit while at Columbia.
“That way I can keep measuring myself with the actual tour and see how my progression is going,” she said.
Of the three Moroccan teens, perhaps Reda is the most hyped. The 17-year-old hit a career-high No 15 in the world junior rankings in March and has quite the professional setup around him. He is represented by sports management giants IMG, who spotted him at an Under-12 event in France, and is sponsored by On and Wilson.
When he was given a wildcard into the qualifying rounds of the ATP Masters 1000 event in Madrid this spring where he took a set off current world No 50 Brandon Nakashima.
Despite having a match later that evening, Reda was watching Karim from the stands of Court 13 on Sunday, supporting his good friend before heading to Court 14 for his first round.
“We’re close friends, we train together and grew up together. It’s very good to see us both playing at these tournaments. I’m proud of this,” said Reda. “We hope we can make it to the pros and play here as seniors. We’ll keep going.”
Reda, who describes himself as a counter-punching clay-court player, isn’t considering college tennis for the moment and hopes to figure out a way to carve a path for himself to the pros.
“It’s a bit complicated because we do have a lot of young players in Morocco who are very, very good, but only when they are young. When they grow up, we don’t have enough help to be professionals,” Reda said.
“If you want to go pro, you need help financially, mentally, a lot of stuff, but we don’t have this in Morocco. But why not? Why not revive the days of Karim, Younes and Hicham?”
All three Moroccan juniors have cited Jabeur as a huge source of inspiration.
“I’ve seen Ons in Madrid and Roland Garros and Wimbledon, she was very, very nice to me. Seeing her is an inspiration because in our part of the world, we don’t have many good players, so seeing someone like Ons really motivates us,” said Reda.
Karim added: “Ons did something just unbelievable. She’s the queen of tennis in Africa and the Arab world.”
