Raneem El Weleily

Raneem El Weleily (born 1 January 1989, in Alexandria, Egypt) is a professional squash player from Egypt.She won the World Junior Championship in Belgium 2005.

Of course the highlight of Raneem’s junior career was becoming world junior champion in Herentals, Belgium in 2005. But to start at the beginning, Raneem was born and has grown up in the Egyptian Mediterranean city of Alexandria. She followed her brother into squash at the age of six…..but maintains that she started spectating two years younger still while watching her brother practice!

Already, she has been able to benefit from the support of many talented coaches. First there was Ahmed Abdallah, then the late Ahmed Safwat. Latterly, Ahmed Taher, the head coach of the Egyptian Squash Federation. Currently, she is training with Medhat Galal and Mossad Abdelwahab.

Since January 2007 Raneem is being coached by Coach Cherine Adel 5 days a week in Cairo coupled with weekday time with Amir Wagih. The rest of the week she plays with some of her friends, her brother or alone in Alexandria.

Amazingly, Raneem first played for Egypt in the World Juniors 2001 in Penang, aged ten. Two years later when the event was played in Cairo she was part of the Egyptian winning squad, and in 2004 represented the senior team that came fourth in the World Teams in Amsterdam.

When she won the World Junior Championship in Belgium in 2005 she rated it as her proudest moment, but everybody in squash thinks that there will be more to come. They include the WISPA membership as a whole who voted her their WISPA Young Player of the Year for both 2004 and 2005.

Last January the junior player won the British Junior Open in Sheffield beating Camille Serme of France. Of course she was extremely happy because it's her last year to take part in that tournament as she will turn 19 during the tournament next year.

She will also be defending her title in August of this year in the Women's World Junior Championship 2007 in Hong Kong. Raneem is also Captain of the Egyptian team in the teams event.

Raneem just graduated from the German School in Alexandria and between training sessions she also finds time to indulge her interests of music, jigsaw puzzles (which she buys from all over the world) and has recently became a sudoko addict!