Egypt have high expectations for Raneem Mohamed at U19 Women's Worlds

CAIRO (FIBA U19 Women's World Championship) - Egypt ace Raneem Mohamed has raised eyebrows on the African continent in recent years and is expected to do so on the world stage once again.

Last year, the 1.86m forward played a crucial role in helping her country qualify for the 2015 FIBA U19 Women's World Championship, after leading the 'Pharaohs' in scoring at the 2014 FIBA Africa U18 Championship in Cairo, where Egypt finished second behind Mali.

Mohamed averaged 15.1 points and 13.9 rebounds per game, and headlined the All-Tournament team with along with her teammate Nada Amr, Mali's duo of Djeneba N'Diaye and Mariam Coulibaly and Neidy Ocuane of Mozambique.

The upcoming U19 Women's Worlds will be another tough challenge for Egypt youth teams, who are yet to win a game on the world stage.

As the 18-year-old Mohamed returns to the world stage for the second time, she will need her 'to-do list' when they take on their Group B opponents China, USA and Spain in Chekhov, Russia, from 18-26 July.

The Sporting Alexandria forward will need to be as good as she was at the 2014 FIBA U17 Women's World Championship in Klatovy and Pilsen in Czech Republic, where she averaged more 9.9 points a game.

In that tournament Egypt finished with a 0-7 record, but it is now time for new challenges for the North Africans.

Sherif Azmy, who was appointed Egypt's head coach in January, knows better than most how Raneem can take her game to the next level.

"Fantastic player," Azmy said of Mohamed, "but she needs to improve her working habits.

She is a talented young player who can become one of the best in the country, but needs to be mentally stronger. - Azmy

Mohamed is part of an Egypt backbone that also includes Fatma Mandouh and Amr.

For Azmy, who served as an assistant coach for Egypt at the 1994 FIBA Basketball World Cup in Canada, it is time "to try to instil a strong psychological approach to my team.

"We have a group of four or five very good players who are capable of competing at high level."

When Egypt begin their preparations next week, Azmy will focus on improving the team's basketball fundamentals before getting into the offense and defense strategy because facing China, USA and Spain is "too difficult [a] task for Egypt", according to the man who coaches Mohamed at Sporting Alexandria.

"We will try to do a good job against those teams. We know that Spain has one of the best basketball programmes in Europe and the USA does not need introductions. As for China, we will try to gather as much information as possible about their team.

"Our objective in the tournament is to reduce the competitive gap between our game to the rest of the teams."

FIBA