LONDON: Kuwaiti line umpire, Aseel Shaheen, has become the first Arab woman to officiate at Wimbledon.
The 41-year-old is among 350 men and women officiating at Wimbledon 2015. The majority of umpires and line judges at the championships are British, but around 60 are invited to take part from overseas.
Shaheen, who became a line judge after enrolling on a course in 2002 admitted that even though she didn’t a lot about tennis before enrolling for the course she finished third in her class.
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“I kept going. It became a challenge for me because they would always nominate the guys and ignore me,” she said.
“I told them I wanted to be an international umpire, I have the qualification and I have the language skills, because I speak good English. So I went to officiating school,” she added.
