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Younes El Aynaoui (b. September 12 1971, in Rabat,
Morocco) is a professional tennis player from
Morocco. 

In 1990, at the age of 18, El Aynaoui traveled to
Bradenton, Florida|Bradenton, Florida, to spend a
week at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, after
which he decided to turn professional. He
continued to hone his skills at the academy for
the next two years where, in order to afford the
fees, he drove the academy bus, cleaned the gym,
strung rackets, tossed practice balls to campers,
and helped to babysit younger players. 

In 1993, he reached his first top-level Grand Prix
tennis tournaments|grand prix singles final in
Casablanca, where he lost to the Argentinian
player Guillermo Perez-Roldan.

After finishing runner-up in three tour events in
1996, El Aynaoui suffered a broken right ankle. 
He had surgery on his ankle in November that year,
but the injury continued to cause him problems. 
He missed seven months of the season in 1997 and
had a second surgery in February 1998.  He
returned to the tour that summer ranked World No.
444, and enjoyed a run of strong results.  He won
five Challenger Series tennis
tournaments|Challenger series tournaments and
finished runner-up at one International Series
tennis tournaments|top-level event in Santiago,
Chile|Santiago.  By the end of the year he had
improved his ranking to World No. 49, and was
named the Association of Tennis
Professionals|ATP's Comeback Player of the Year. 

In 1999, El Aynaoui won his first top-level
singles title in Amsterdam. 

In 2000, El Aynaoui reached the quarter-finals of
the Australian Open where he lost to Yevgeny
Kafelnikov. 

El Aynaoui won his second top-level title in 2001
at Bucharest.  He was also runner-up in Amsterdam
that year, losing in the final to Alex Corretja in
a five-set, 53-game match  (6-3, 5-7, 7-6, 3-6,
6-4) which was the year's longest tour final.

El Aynaoui captured three tour titles in 2002
(Casablanca, Doha and Munich), and reached the
quarter-finals of the U.S. Open (tennis)|US Open. 

The most famous match of El Aynaoui's career came
at the Australian Open in 2003.  He qualified for
the match by defeating World No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt
in four sets in the fourth round, thus setting-up
a quarter-final showdown with the up-and-coming
American Andy Roddick (who would go on reach the
World No. 1 ranking later that year).  The
five-set, five-hour match included the longest
fifth-set in Grand Slam (tennis)|Grand Slam tennis
history. Roddick eventually won the titantic
battle 4-6, 7-6, 4-6, 6-4, 21-19.  Both players
saved match points against them before the
marathon fifth-set finally concluded. El Aynaoui
also reached the quarter-finals of the US Open
that year, and finished the season ranked a
career-high World No. 14.

El Aynaoui is an extremely popular figure in
Morocco.  He received a gold medal – the
nation's highest sporting honor – from
Mohammed VI of Morocco|King Mohammed VI.  In a
2003 poll by leading Moroccan newspaper
L'Economiste, readers to named El Aynaoui their
favorite role model for society, ahead of the
prime minister and athletics star Hicham El
Guerrouj.  The centre court of the Royal Tennis
Club in Marrakech is named after El Aynaoui.


==External links==
*http://www.atptennis.com/en/players/playerprofile
s/default2.asp?playersearch=Younes+El+Aynaoui
Official ATP Profile
*http://www.hiinternational.com/articles/art5_en.c
fm?topicId=5&id=359 Hi International Article