Saudi Arabia hosts first ever women's basketball tournament

Jeddah: In collaboration with the Jeddah Swish Basketball Academy, the Saudi government has begun hosting the first ever women's basketball tournament in the country. The all-woman Saudi Basketball Tournament was held in conjunction with the Basketball Federation in Jeddah and Riyadh on January 22 and will end on March 3.

"The performance is not expected to be of any comparison to WNBA level, but still, it's just incredible to see these girls do what they do since they don't have existing face-to-face role models here that they can talk to and see when it comes to female sports," said Swish coach and CEO of the Jeddah Swish Academy, Mohannad Shobain. 

Shobain opened the doors of his academy to make and female basketball players in 2017, following completion of his Master's from Cleveland University. He also plans to take the current crop of players to Europe this season to train them, according to a report by Arab News.

Shobain feels the new generation of Saudi female basketball has great potential, they just "need fine-tuning."

"I do see that there's a lot of skill, a lot of good talent, a lot of good potential. They just need the right training, the right equipment, and opportunity, such as this opportunity of playing in the Saudi Basketball Tournament to develop their game, gain experience, and influence others to love and start playing basketball," the Saudi Premier League champion and FIBA (International Basketball Federation) accredited coach said.

Dareen Sabban, 28, and Abrar Alghamri, 33, are two of the top-rated female basketball players in the Swish team, who both credited basketball for teaching them important life lessons and hoped that they could represent Saudi on an international sporting stage.

Sabban wishes to represent Saudi Arabia in basketball internationally and bring laurels to her country by winning championships and setting an example for future generations to take up the sport professionally. She was part of her university team at the first women's basketball tournament at Al-Johara for an event that was organized by the Ministry of Health and the General Sports Authority in 2021.

Alghamri, who has been playing basketball since she was 10, said that it taught her sportsmanship and "how to deal with failures and successes,"

"I realized that while I'm playing basketball, I'm learning about life as much as I'm learning about the game," she told Arab News. 

"We have taken the girls' team to Romania, Bucharest to play a three-on-three World Cup qualification tournament in 2019. We also took our boys team to Dubai once in 2018, and we've hosted the Saudi Kingdom Cup here in Jeddah in 2021," Shobain revealed. 

Shobain said the Swish Academy provided impetus for female players who were "hungry" to learn to play, giving them programmes and training to grow and succeed. He is currently the only Saudi who is pursuing a FIBA Europe Coaching Certificate.