Kareem Al Allaf

Kareem Al Allaf (كريم العلاف; born March 22, 1998) is an American tennis player and tennis coach of Syrian descent. He holds the all-time wins record for singles and doubles combined in college tennis at the University of Iowa.

Allaf has a career-high ATP singles ranking of 751, achieved on May 22, 2023. He also has a career-high ATP doubles ranking of 704, achieved on August 21, 2023. He was also a doubles champion at the ITF World Tennis Tour in the summer of 2019.

Allaf represented the Syria Davis Cup team at the Davis Cup, where he played #1 singles and had a W/L record of 18–9 (12–5 in singles play) in 2015–21. However, the Syrian Tennis Federation banned him because he competed in a match against an Israeli opponent in a tournament in Arkansas in 2022. Consequently, he switched nationalities to represent his birth country, the United States.

Early life Allaf was born in Des Moines, Iowa.

College career Allaf graduated from the University of Iowa in 2020 with a degree in Enterprise Leadership and a minor in Communications, before earning a masters in 2022 in Sports and Recreational Management.

He won 95 career singles matches and 69 career doubles matches. In 2019, he qualified for the ITA Main Draw, and became only the second player from the university to accomplish the feat. Allaf earned three All-Big Ten honors. He was also a doubles champion at the ITF World Tennis Tour in the summer of 2019.

The Syrian Tennis Federation banned him, because he competed in a match against an Israeli opponent in a 2022 ITF Men's World Tennis Tour tournament in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in November 2022. Allaf said: "I respect everyone equally ... Hopefully this doesn't happen again to other athletes from Arab countries .. I think the ITF should get involved in this ... It should never happen again." Egyptian journalist Reem Abulleil wrote on Twitter: "Syrian tennis player @KareemAllaf played against and defeated Israeli player Nitzan Ricklis last week in a $15k in Fayetteville, Arkansas. As a response, the Syrian Tennis Federation has banned him. Hope @ITFTennis do something. This nonsense has got to stop."

As a result of the Syrian federation's ban, Allaf switched nationalities to represent his birth country, the United States.

Coaching From 2022–23 he was a volunteer assistant at Mississippi State University. From 2023 to the present he has been a University of Central Florida assistant coach with their UCF Knights tennis team in Orlando, Florida.