Egypt’s Raneem Elgedawy already focusing on 2025 FIBA Women’s AfroBasket

 

KIGALI (Rwanda) – Egypt were in tears after they lost their Classification Game to the Quarter-Finals to Senegal 60-71, but though still shaken about the loss, Raneem Elgedawy is already focusing on the 2025 FIBA Women’s AfroBasket.

In a do-or-die Classification Round game, Egypt put up a big effort to resist Senegal in the first three quarters, but the North Africans simply lost their sense of attack in the final stretch.

The Egyptians scored only 8 points and watched in desperation as the Western Africans plummeted them down with a 20-point showdown.

In those cases, it is difficult to pinpoint what did not work and thinking about what could have been done.

Elgedawy, a 1.86m (6ft1in) center does not have the answer to the defeat.

"I don't know what happened at that point. We stopped playing in defense, we stopped fighting hard, we stopped playing together. Maybe we got tired," said Elgedawy to FIBA.basketball.

She goes even further by saying that this game is to be forgotten. “Maybe we don't deserve to win because we didn't play hard, we didn't play together. The coach gave us instructions and we didn't follow them.”

Even though they are out of the title race, Egypt still have a chance to redeem themselves by trying to reach the best ranking they can. "We didn't come to play Classification Games. We were aiming for a spot in the Final Four and we simply missed it. Now, we're going to learn from our mistakes and play hard for every coming game to try and finish with the best possible ranking."

Elgedawy averaged 15.7 points and 10.3 rebounds per game. It is not a feat she derives any pride from. It could have been a personal satisfaction if it had helped the Egyptians make it to the Quarter-Finals.

Instead, the center is convinced that she could and should have done more to help her country reach their goal.

And being one of the Egyptian players to have finished with double digits in all their three games so far, she takes on a part of responsibility for this loss.

“My field goal percentage is far from what I could have expected. Maybe it was because I was stressed. But this is not how I was supposed to play. I was trying to play as best as I can,” she said.

It seems like the 2023 FIBA Women’s AfroBasket page is already turned and Elgedawy has started afresh. Looking forward to the 2025 edition of the tournament, she promises that Egypt won’t be missing out on opportunities to write a piece of their history.

"We're going to come back, stronger, more focused and more determined to reach whatever goal we will have set in 2025,” said Elgedawy who won the FIBA Africa Zone 5 Qualifiers MVP award early this year. 

FIBA