World No.1 Hania El Hammamy overcame fellow Egyptian Fayrouz Aboelkheir in Paris to join Malaysia’s Sivasangari Subramaniam in the title decider at this season’s PSA Squash Tour Finals presented by TWG Global.
El Hammamy came into this event with her No.1 ranking under threat, but Orfi’s defeat to Sivasangari earlier tonight has guaranteed the 25-year-old will end the season as the world’s top-ranked female.
Aboelkheir, meanwhile, came into tonight’s match after sending out two-time winner Nour ElSherbini in the semi-finals.
It was Aboelkheir who started the better of the two as she found her targets early on, but the 20-year-old was unable to take advantage of a 10-8 lead in the opening game. El Hammamy held her nerve to draw level and then unleashed a lovely boast to catch her opponent off guard.
With temperatures reaching 31 degrees celsius during the match, both players were afforded an extra minute of rest during the game break to hydrate and cool down before battle resumed.
El Hammamy started better in the second and nullified Aboelkheir’s attacking threats more effectively, doubling her lead, however she fell 7-3 behind in the third as her opponent found a second wind.
The hot conditions seemed to affect Aboelkheir more than El Hammamy as the former began to falter physically. That saw El Hammamy come back through, taking eight of the next nine points to secure her spot in the title decider of this event for the fourth time.
“Nowadays it always seems like I’m coming back from a deficit,” said El Hammamy.
“It took me a while to find my range and my corners. Fayrouz likes to chop and change, and she doesn’t play in a rhythm and that made me a bit uncomfortable. It took some time to find my length.
“I’ve seen the sudden death and I see how people get so excited. It made me excited to give it a huge push if I got back to 10-10. If you play someone who is more rhythmic and doesn’t go for shots, I would try and take risks if I was confident on the day. But with Fayrouz I wanted to take less risks and not open the court too much because she plays incredible shots out of nowhere.
“I had to close the court down and wait for my opportunity.”
Result
[2] Hania El Hammamy (EGY) bt [6] Fayrouz Aboelkheir (EGY) 3-0: 11-10, 11-8, 11-8 (41m)The semi-finals of the PSA Squash Tour Finals are live on SQUASHTV.
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