Duncan Mackay in Melbourne
A wisp of a young woman who looks as if one gust of wind would blow her away played in Melbourne not just for glory, but for the emancipation of her sisters all 140-million of them.
Selima Sfar’s appearance in the Australian Open went beyond the sporting arena and became a political statement to reverberate around Arabia and north Africa.
She lost 4-6 3-6 to the Thai 25th seed, Tamarine Tanasugarn in the first round, but opinion is divided on whether, by becoming the first Arab woman to make it on the international tennis circuit, the player from Carthage in northern Tunisia is a heroine or a harlot.
In the strict Muslim world of the chador, a woman is supposed to know her place. It is not striding out in front of men and it is certainly not doing so with exposed arms, legs and face.
Sfar knows she carries a burden of responsibility far weightier than the ambition of most sportswomen to win for their country and themselves. “Every Arab woman who does something big stays in the history of the Arab world,” she says.
“Everyone is desperate to see our situation evolve. If I can do well, it opens the door for Arab women everywhere.”
Sfar (24), whose appearance in Melbourne meant she has played in each of the grand slams, is the most important ambassador Arab women’s sports has had since the Algerian Hassiba Boulmerka defied the ayatollahs to win the gold medal in the 1 500m at the 1992 Olympics.
As the first daughter of Islam to shine in international sport, Boulmerka was spat upon and had obscene graffiti about her daubed on walls around Algeria at a time when the Islamic Salvation Front was sweeping to power.
Boulmerka has since been followed by a generation of Moroccan female athletes who have succeeded in events ranging from the 400m hurdles to the marathon. But Sfar’s emergence is significant because tennis is a sport associated with femininity and where sex is used so brazenly to sell the product.
She was born and raised in one of the more liberal Arab countries and her family already had a history of being trailblazers. Her grandfather was a journalist who founded the first Arabic newspaper in Tunisia, and who was jailed by the French colonial authorities for campaigning for Tunisian independence. Both her parents are doctors.
Sfar’s parents did not object to her playing tennis with her friends after school at the local club, which was near their home.
“My school was also across the road from my house, and so my friends used to gather there and we would go over to play tennis,” she recalls. “It was very easy, and my parents knew where we were.”
But Sfar was so good that by the time she was 13 she was already the best tennis player in the country and had run out of opponents. “There were no boys or girls left, just the wall.”
Sfar’s career may have faltered if it had not been for her grandfather, who felt strongly that women deserved the same opportunities as men. He urged her parents to send her to France to continue her tennis education. “My grandfather pushed me on because he knew that if I could succeed, it would mean something for the Arab world,” she says.
In France, Sfar has justified her grandfather’s faith in her. She joined the squad of Regis de Camaret, coach of Nathalie Tauziat, in Biarritz. Like Tauziat, the Wimbledon runner-up in 1998, Sfar is a serve-and-volley player, who, despite her size, has a big serve and she has now risen to number 81 in the world rankings.