Tennis should not be wrongly considered as a sport reserved for wealthy social classes. It is with this in mind that the Wilaya of Gharb-Chrarda-Beni Hssen organised, in collaboration with the Royal Moroccan Tennis Federation (FRMT), an outreach day for the benefit of nearly 200 children, boys and girls, from public schools, notably from disadvantaged neighbourhoods and social protection establishments. A space was set up for this occasion in front of the Wilaya headquarters. This meeting, in which the Wali of the Gharb-Chrarda-Beni Hssen region, Governor of the Kenitra province, Zineb El Adaoui, and great names of national sport such as Badr Hari, Hicham Arazi, and Mehdi Tahiri took part, aims, according to its designers, to achieve an educational, sporting, and social objective.

On the sporting level, it is first of all a question of feeding tennis clubs with young talents aged 5 to 8 and detecting budding champions with high potential, in order to accompany them and prepare them to become the great athletes of tomorrow. On the educational level, the primary objective of the organisers is to make thousands of children discover the taste for tennis through a fun approach.

Beyond the purely sporting character, this initiation allows for the enrichment of the child's motor skills, namely the coordination of movements, dexterity, balance, and perception. The social dimension of this outreach day is also manifested in this desire to move tennis practice towards disadvantaged neighbourhoods for the purpose of detecting promising talents to make this sport a means of social integration.

The former national tennis glory, Hicham Arazi, insisted on pointing out on this occasion that his social origins did not prevent him from shining brightly on tennis courts around the world. The interest of this day, he adds, is to allow children to discover new emotions through tennis. It is also an opportunity for the discovery of new talents capable of ensuring the succession. “In a world where children are obsessed with the Internet and electronic games, it has become increasingly difficult to train great champions without the involvement of parents and in the absence of appropriate technical supervision,” he emphasises by way of conclusion.

The president of the Tennis Club of Kenitra, Dr. Chafik Sader, for his part, declared that at the end of this day, several young talents will be taken care of by the club to initiate them into the practice of tennis and accompany them with a view to preparing them to become future champions of whom the city of Kenitra will be able to be proud. It should be noted that this tennis outreach day took place on the sidelines of the Morocco Tennis Tour (MTT) of Kenitra which took place from 20 to 27 September. This ATP Challenger circuit event, in which the Spaniard Pablo Carrero Busta, ranked 74th in the world, is participating, is endowed with 50,000 US dollars. It counts for the third and eighth stages of the eighth edition of the H.M. King Mohammed VI International Circuit.

Promoting national tennis

Organised under the aegis of the FRMT and the ATP, the H.M. King Mohammed VI International Circuit includes, in addition to the Kenitra stage, three other MTT tournaments in Mohammedia (14-21 June 2014 won by the Spaniard Pablo Carrero Busta), Meknès (13-20 September 2014), and Casablanca (10-17 January 2015). According to the organisers, the MTT tournaments allow Moroccan players to improve their ATP ranking at home and contribute to the influence of the host cities of the four stages.