{"id":513680,"date":"2026-01-13T18:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T18:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/513680\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T18:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T18:37:11","slug":"tennis-player-vanishes-after-lying-way-into-pro-tournament-and-playing-horribly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/513680\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis player vanishes after lying way into pro tournament \u2014 and playing horribly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The fallout from an Egyptian tennis player\u2019s widely ridiculed professional debut has taken an even stranger turn.<\/p>\n<p>Hajar Abdelkader, a 21-year-old who gained international attention for a confounding performance in an International Tennis Federation event in Kenya this month, has been accused of misleading organizers to secure entry into the event, a source told The Telegraph, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/world-news\/2026\/01\/12\/kenya-tournament-egyptian-worlds-worst-abdelkader-schaedel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">which reported she has gone off the grid<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe gave false information about her ranking and her stats. We can\u2019t find her and don\u2019t know where she\u2019s gone to,\u201d a source said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Abdelkader, who was permitted to play after a Kenyan athlete pulled out at the last minute, was walloped by German opponent Lorena Schedel, 6-0, 6-0.<\/p>\n<p>During the match, which lasted 37 minutes, Abdelkader tallied 20 double faults and had to be instructed by Schedel, No. 1,139 in the world, on where to serve on the baseline, per The Telegraph.<\/p>\n<p>Tennis Kenya\u2019s secretary general, Nancy Nduku, said Abdelkader \u201cshould not have been granted\u201d access to play.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe federation has taken note of this experience and will ensure that such an extremely rare occurrence never happens again,\u201d Nduku stated.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.77777778;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38170945\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/tennis-player-barely-able-play-118490927.jpg\" alt=\"An Egyptian tennis player has gone viral over a confounding performance in her debut \u2014 and is accused of misleading tournament organizers for entry.\" class=\"wp-image-38170945\"  \/>An Egyptian tennis player has gone viral over a confounding performance in her debut \u2014 and is accused of misleading tournament organizers for entry. @SportakCZ\/X<\/p>\n<p>The Telegraph <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/world-news\/2026\/01\/08\/amateur-tennis-player-begged-spot-professional-tournament\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">previously reported<\/a> Abdelkader \u201crepeatedly emailed officials from December 26\u201d as she lobbied for an opportunity to participate.<\/p>\n<p>That wild-card chance was granted as Abdelkader suggested \u201cshe had an appropriate level of competitive playing experience,\u201d Tennis Kenya said, with The Telegraph reporting her ITF profile indicated she has played the sport since she was 14. <\/p>\n<p>Attempts to reach Abdelkader were unsuccessful by The Telegraph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fallout from an Egyptian tennis player\u2019s widely ridiculed professional debut has taken an even stranger turn. Hajar&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":513681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[2244,62,1464,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-513680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-kenya","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-tennis","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115889245104377226","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}