Thursday, November 14, 2024

Qatar Squash Classic: Olivia Weaver comes through tough Coll test

Doha — Top seeds Ali Farag and Nour El Sherbini both won on Thursday to make it to the last four of the QTerminals Qatar Classic, but the stand out match belonged to Olivia Weaver, who was tested all the way by Nele Coll.

Farag, winner here last year, won convincingly against Swiss Nicolas Mueller in just over the half-hour mark. Save for the first game that went to the tie-break, Farag cruised through the second and third games with some dominant rallies.

Having conquered second seed Paul Coll in the opening round and following up with a comfortable second round win over Frenchman Auguste Dussourd, Joel Makin had his toughest match this afternoon. 

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Makin took the first two games in a similar scoreline of 11-5. The scoreline doesn’t quite justify how intense they were, and it was a shame that many of them ended with errors from the Egyptian. 

The 90-seconds pep talk from compatriot Farag seems to have worked wonders as the Egyptian came back to win the third with some beautiful squash to force a fourth game. The fast and furious rallies continued into the fourth and it was neck to neck for most of the game, before Dessouky once again lost his focus a little in the end which cost him. 

“It’s one of those when you can be winning comfortably, but it was down to his error count rather than me playing well. I was containing him, but once he switched, he was very dangerous. He’s got world-class skill, but it’s not about that,” the Welshman said.

Diego Elias, losing finalist here last year, meanwhile, beat crowd favourite Tarek Momen in four games. Momen, who won his sole World Championships on this court in 2019, held a 13-6 record against the Peruvian prior to today. 

Mostafa Asal overcame a one-game deficit to win the final match of the evening, beating Karim Abdul Gawad in exactly an hour. The win sets him up against Joel Makin on the semis, who he has beaten in the last five meetings. The last time the Welshman beat Asal was in the 2023 Canary Wharf Classic, where the pair played for just under 100 minutes.

In the women’s event Nour El Sherbini did not have easy against Englishwoman Georgina Kennedy. With a game a-piece, she had to save four game balls before winning 14-12 to go ahead. 

Kennedy started the next strongly with a 3-0 lead, but El Sherbini, as she often does, quickly turned that around. Once she hit her momentum, this quickly turned the 0-3 deficit into a 10-4 lead, before she wrapped up the game and match 11-5. 

World number two Nouran Gohar maintained her 100% winning record against World Junior Champion Amina Orfi with a 3-1 win. With both playing a very similar style and enjoy taking their space, the match was filled with traffic stoppages. But this didn’t take away the quality of the matchup – the World Champion against the World Junior Champion. 

“It (younger players coming up) reminds me a bit of the top three right now.

“We’ve been in their position, so we know what they are feeling. It’s good because you know what’s going on in your mind, but it’s bad because they’re fearless, they play some shots that they wouldn’t play in any other occasions. You have to be on your toes.

“It [the World Champion playing the World Junior Champion] shows the depth of the women’s game right now, it’s amazing”, said Gohar, who once beat Nicol David, the world number one then, a week after winning the World Junior title.

It’s not often to see one outlast Coll, who is known for her superior fitness. But this evening, USA’s Weaver did just that in what arguably is the match of the day. Coming back from 1-2 down, she masterfully moved Coll to all four corners in the last two games to seal a 72-minute victory and break a five-match losing streak.

In an earlier match, Hania El Hammamy took out Belgium’s Tinne Gilis 3-0 in exactly 30 minutes. The win sets her up against world number one Nour El Sherbini in tomorrow’s semis.

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