Emirati inspired by modern-day greats takes part in Mubadala Tennis in Schools initiative

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  • Ali Al Marzooqi was inspired by watching Federer and Nadal in the UAE.

    Ali Al Marzooqi remembers exactly the moment he fell in love with tennis. He watched Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships final and was struck by the beauty of the game.

    A decade later, the 17-year-old Al Marzooqi finds himself coaching young kids as part of the Mubadala Tennis in Schools (MTiS) three-day activation at the Abu Dhabi Sports Festival, hoping to transfer his passion for the game into the hearts and minds of his fellow Emiratis.

    Over the last eight years, the Mubadala World Tennis Championship (MWTC) – held each year in Abu Dhabi around New Year’s – has been spreading the sport across the UAE through its community programmes.

    The MTiS has been expanding each season, visiting more and more schools, training their teachers and providing equipment and manuals for tennis lessons.

    Last year, the programme was extended from just three months to the entire academic year, and this Ramadan, Mubadala have decided to set up several events in order to draw in more and more youngsters to tennis.

    Al Marzooqi spent the last three days at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre interacting with young kids and believes its key for Emirati youngsters to have older countrymen to look up to in the sport.

    “I’m here to coach young kids, particularly locals, to get acquainted with tennis and know what it’s all about,” Al Marzooqi told Sport360 on Sunday.

    Ali Al Marzooqi-Tennis-Mubadala

    “I’ve been playing for about seven years and now I’m trying to raise my level and break onto the professional scene.

    “They chose me to come here to try to encourage more locals to pick up the sport, and be like a role model for them so they can follow in my footsteps.

    “You know that nationals here are more into football and jiu-jitsu, those are the main two sports in the UAE. So I’m trying to convince them to get into tennis.”

    Al Marzooqi, who trains with Vasja Gorjup at PSS Tennis Academy at Zayed Sports City, has a long history with the MWTC. He has competed in two editions of the Mubadala Community Cup – a tennis age-group tournament held for people from across the UAE that awards the winners spots in clinics with the starts of the MWTC.

    A loyal Nadal fan ever since he witnessed his success in Dubai 10 years ago, Al Marzooqi won the Mubadala Community Cup in 2014 and landed a place in a clinic with the Spaniard.

    The MWTC also gave him a once in a lifetime experience several years earlier, when he got to play with both Nadal and Federer on Centre Court with just three other kids, during the first edition of the tournament in 2009.

    “It was an indescribable experience. An unbelievable feeling. It pushed to continue in the sport and the tips Nadal gave me that day will stay with me forever,” he recalls.

    Ali Al Marzooqi-Mubadala-Tennis

    Al Marzooqi just graduated from high school and is enrolled in the Paris-Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi where he hopes to pursue a degree in either law or business.

    “Traveling to tournaments while studying at school has not been easy but now that I’ve graduated, I’m hoping to enter ITF tournaments,” said the teenager, who might have to delay his plans for a year should he get called up for the one-year mandatory National Service.

    “Tennis to me is much better than going to the gym for example, because you move every part of your body, you have to have everything, high stamina, good technique… it’s more of a mental game, because if there’s no trust, there’s no confidence and you cannot play.

    “The most important thing I’m telling the kids I’m meeting today is to have confidence in themselves and just enjoy the game.”

    Mubadala’s Group Communications Assistant Manager Saoud Karmastaji says the company’s main reason to partner with the tournament was to encourage more UAE residents to do sport and embrace and active and healthy lifestyle.

    “It’s very important to have role models like Ali because he is close to the UAE society and close to the way our youngsters think,” said Karmastaji.

    “He’s a live example that if anyone works hard you can achieve something in the future. We have Omar Behroozian, and we have someone like Ali, who is an up-and-comer, those are great success stories those kids can try and emulate.”

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