Mayar Sherif has started to get attention back home after becoming the first Egyptian female to reach the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament. Her followers could now more than double after she received encouragement from Liverpool's football star Mohamed Salah.

Sherif made history for Egypt after reaching the main draw of the French Open on Friday, winning three qualifying contests.

But Egyptians' interest in tennis can hardly be compared to that of football, with Salah earning a cult status after three trophy-laden years with English champions Liverpool.

Salah shared on his Twitter account, which has 13 million followers, news of Sherif's success and commented with an applause emoji.

"It's very, very nice to get this kind of support from someone who is already very, very good, and someone who is very special from Egypt," Sherif told Roland Garros' official website.

"Salah is someone who is one of a kind. So it's very nice, it made me feel like, 'Oh, someone important is following, thank God'.

"Honestly it's very nice to see that people know who I am, that people know the effort I'm doing, that people know that, 'Oh, this person is special, this person is doing something different'. This is very, very important, it gives me a lot of mental support."

Sherif will be looking to continue her impressive run and cause an upset when she meets second seed Karolina Pliskova in the first round of the French Open.

(For more sports news and updates, follow Ahram Online Sports on Twitter at @AO_Sports and on Facebook at AhramOnlineSports.)