WITH all the ATP Tour and WTA Tour tournaments on hiatus for the time being, Draft Central will take a look at various nations across the globe and analyse how the top players from that nation are performing. Our next nation is Algeria.

Top ATP player: Mohamed Nazim Makhlouf
Rank: 1224 (as of March 16, 2020)
Age: 23
Points: 5
Tournaments played: 12

The 23-year-old Algerian, Mohamed Nazim Makhlouf does not play a lot of tennis on tour, having recorded just the 112 tournaments in the past 12 months, and is ranked outside the top 1000. His only match to-date this year came as a straight sets loss to Louis Dussin in France, making his 2020 prize money just $156 USD. Rewind to last season and Makhlouf’s last win came in Tunisia at a 15K event where he defeated the 839th ranked Frenchman, Constantin Bittoun Kouzamine.

Earlier in the year, Makhlouf had wins in Finland, Netherlands and Morrocco – with the latter seeing him win back-to-back and reach a quarter final in the Agadir event before going down in three sets to home nation player, Adam Moundir. A pure clay court player, the Algerian does not choose to compete in a heap of events, and instead sticks to his regular tournaments, which is why he had only played the one tournament this year. There are only two other Algerians on the ATP Tour, but they have played a combined seven tournaments for just two points.

Other notable Algeria ATP players: Mohamed Hassan, Youcef Rihane.

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Top WTA player: Ines Ibbou
Rank: 620 (as of 23/03/2020)
Age: 21
Points: 49
Tournaments played: 10

The only Algerian WTA Tour player, Innes Ibbou is only 21-years-old and is ranked 620th in the world. She has played 10 tournaments in the past 12 months and earned 49 ranking points which is bang for your buck at the lower levels. It makes her the highest ranked Algerian across both tours, and while there are no other noted Algerian WTA Tour players, she is representing the nation well.

Ibbou has made $27,825 USD in her time on tour, and even entered the Qatar Open on the Premier women’s tour back in February, but was bundled out in the first round of qualifying, copping Hungarian Timea Babos there. Prior to that she reached the Round of 16 in a Tunisian ITF 15K event, then in her most recent event was forced to retire after being a set up but 4-0 down against German, Franziska Sziedat. Still quite young, Ibbou has potential for the future and is not afraid to enter the WTA Tour events close to home, but she is also a fair way off the pace and has much to learn.

Other notable Algeria WTA players: Nil.
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Summary:

Algeria does not have a heap of regulars on tour, and even the top ranked ones are playing through minimal tournaments. Ibbou at least has a crack at the Premier event in Doha which is promising for the youngster, but overall, it is predominantly ITF Tour events for players across the board.