Oman's Fatima targets steady improvement
She is ready to work hard after first-round exit
Dubai: Oman's Fatima Al Nabhani wants to give her game time to develop before playing more regularly on the WTA Tour.
After a taste of life in the fast lane at last week's Doha Open, the 22-year-old opened up well against her first-round opponent Israeli Shahar Peer before finally going down in straight sets, 6-3, 6-1, at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
The result has done little to diminish Fatima's ambition to take her game to a higher level.
"It's always hard to expect something, but hopefully at least top 200 or top 300 [by the end of the year]," Fatima said.
"It's not something tough at all.
"When you do well in one or two tournaments, you're already there. But I just need to keep up and play a lot of tournaments to improve my ranking."
Now with a new French coach in the shape of Laurent Orsini, the Omani has her plans in place for a major part of the season as she attempts to climb up the rankings.
"I'm playing two tournaments in the next two weeks in Florida, two $25,000 (Dh91,825) ITF events," she said. "After Florida probably I'm playing in Thailand, also two $25,000 tournaments. And then I have the $10,000 circuit that they do in the Gulf region — Bahrain, Fujairah and Oman."
Lost weight
"Physically I think I'm a much better player than last year.
"I lost a lot of weight since last year. And also playing-wise on the court, it's getting better.
"Maybe it was hard for me because I don't play these tough matches all the time against these top players.
"So when you play one time, it's not enough. When you play a couple of times it gets better each time."
With her coach backing her, Fatima is confident of realising her dream.
"I have to play a lot of tournaments to increase my ranking," she said.
"Last year I didn't play much due to injury. Hopefully this year I will be healthy and it's going to be much better."
