The global diversity of the Hologic WTA Tour continued to grow as Burundi's Sada Nahimana became the first player from the East African country to compete in a tour-level main draw at the Grand Prix Son Altesse Royale La Princesse Lalla Meryem.

Nahimana was not able to make it a victorious debut, falling 6-0, 6-4 to former Top 100 player Jana Fett. However, the 22-year-old did win the point of the match as she turned defense into attack midway through the first set, and she twice led by a break in the second before Fett's experience told.

A former junior No.12, Nahimana's links to Morocco go back to her teenage years. As a junior, she lived and trained at the ITF Training Centre in Casablanca for six years and in 2022, she made her WTA qualifying debut in Rabat. These days, she is based at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in Nice.

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Nahimana is now ranked No.255, 11 places beneath the career high of No.244 she set last month. That came after another historic moment for the trailblazing youngster. In April, Nahimana headed the draws in the first ever international women's tennis events to be held in Burundi, a pair of ITF W25s in the capital of Bujumbura. Nahimana was runner-up to Alice Robbe in the first.