Having asked coaches and players at the ITF’s J500 Cairo event for some background information on Gloriana Nahum, the message back was somewhat unexpected – she is extremely proficient at wall sits.

For those unaware, wall sits are an exercise described as “quad burners” whereby, for as long as possible, an individual presses their back against a wall while keeping their knees bent at a 90-degree angle and thighs parallel to the floor.

It is a technique the 16-year-old perfected during the Covid-19 pandemic when she and others were marooned at the ITF/CAT High Performance Tennis Centre in Casablanca, Morocco as flight and other restrictions impeded travel. Fitness wise, at least, isolation clearly had its benefits.

“It was during quarantine, and I was practising with my coach and doing a lot of wall-sit exercises,” Nahum tells itftennis.com.

“Because I was the youngest there – I was 13, whereas the oldest was 18 or 19 – I knew I had to work extra hard at the wall sits. One day, they said there was going to be a fitness test and I had to pick an exercise. In the end, I lasted 21 minutes continuously.”

While her wall-sit competence warrants considerable appreciation, the teenager is on the cusp of making a name for herself in an altogether different capacity and one which is likely to have far wider implications.

Nahum is on the brink of the Top 100 of the ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Rankings and, should she achieve a double-digit ranking, she will become the first girl from Benin to achieve the feat.  

Congrats to Gloriana Goreti Nahum 🇧🇯 in Casablanca 15k ITF this week.

The 15 year old wildcard from Benin earns her first 2 WTA points by reaching the Quarter Finals

May not be as well known as Ons Jabeur 🇹🇳 in African tennis but great to see Benin 🇧🇯 being represented. pic.twitter.com/Y1dffiGU2T

— Chris Goldsmith (@TheTennisTalker) July 8, 2022

Two Benin boys, Arnaud Segodo and Loic Didavi, have reached the Top 100 previously, although the hand of history is firmly pointing in the direction of Nahum, who is already the top-ranked girl Benin has ever produced.

“If I was to make the Top 100 of the junior rankings, I would be really, really happy because I would be the first girl from Benin to do that and it would be history,” said Nahum, who now trains in Poissy in the western suburbs of Paris.

“I didn’t expect something like this when I started playing tennis. At that time, I just wanted to enjoy myself and have fun with my dad and brother. But I also wanted to travel, and my dad said that if I wanted to travel through tennis then I had to be the best.

“I worked really hard to be the No. 1 girl in West Africa in my age group. From there, I was invited to the ITF/CAT High Performance Tennis Centre in Casablanca, and while I was stressing I was also excited. I was like, ‘oh my God, I am going to train with the best players in Africa’.

“The ITF seeing something in me made me really believe in myself and I hope more players, more girls, will come from Benin. I really hope that we can show that more people from our country can achieve.”

This is a sentiment echoed by Amine Ben Makhlouf, who has been the ITF’s Development Officer for West, North and Central Africa since September 2005. He was also the tennis centre's director when Nahum was enrolled.

“Reaching the Top 100 will take us back to the glory years of the late 1990s and 2000s when we had Arnaud Segodo from Benin in the Top 30 of the junior rankings,” Makhlouf tells itftennis.com. “Gloriana will show the path for young players so West Africa can create champions.”

Nahum began to train at Morocco's ITF/CAT High Performance Tennis Centre in September 2019 after her talent was spotted at the 2018 ITF/CAT West and Central African Championships. She remained at the centre until June 2021.

Someone fully aware of Nahum’s time there and indeed her progress since is Rosemary Owino, a hugely respected coach working with Tennis Kenya. Owino was in the Egyptian capital for the J500 Cairo event as a Grand Slam Player Development Programme coach but was keen to keep a close eye on Benin's rising star. 

“Gloriana has mental strength, physical ability and tactically she is very smart,” Owino tells itftennis.com. “She is also very energetic, very positive, doesn’t take things for granted and makes demands of herself.

“Put all that together and she has the potential to achieve her goals. The first of those, reaching the Top 100, would be very good for players from Benin, the West Africa region and Africa in general.

“As Gloriana says, it is good to help others believe they can do this. Until they see people doing it, it’s difficult for them to believe. It’s like running a four-minute mile, the more people who do, the more people think it’s possible, and they can work towards it.

“For a lot of African players, it is about belief. Gloriana is giving them hope.”

Nahum hopes to have broken the Top 100 of the junior rankings by the end of March and be within the Top 40 by the end of the year. At the same time, she intends to continue her development by gaining further exposure –  she reached the quarter-finals at W15 Casablanca in July 2022 – to the ITF World Tennis Tour Women’s.

She also dreams of competing at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, which would require success at August’s African Games and an improved WTA ranking. Ambitious maybe, but belief clearly underpins everything Nahum does. Evidently, absolutely nothing is deemed impossible.