Wins for English pair Lucy Turmel and Jasmine Hutton, and Egyptian duo Farida Mohamed and Hana Ramadan …
Hana Ramadan (Egy) 3-1 Zeina Mickawy (Egy) 11-9, 11-7, 9-11, 17-15 (48m)
Jasmine Hutton (Eng) 3-1 Lee Ka Yi (Hkg ) 7-11, 11-6, 11-6, 11-5 (38m)
Farida Mohamed (Egy) 3-0 Anna Serme (Cze) 11-9, 11-6, 11-7 (24m)
Lucy Turmel (Eng) 3-0 Vanessa Chu (Hkg) 11-9, 11-6, 11-5 (24m)
After the two brothers, the only English girls in that first round were playing together. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to, to support you” they smiled…
Jasmine : We are not allowed to watch matches and support each other, which is quite hard. It’s hard when you don’t have anyone to talk to. But it’s nice to have someone you are close to just around and knowing they are there.
I have never seen her play and a lot of girls from HK haven’t played many events recently. I knew she had a lot of games against good players, and a few people told me she likes to go for shots. So I knew I had to be on it from the word go otherwise it would have been a really tough game today.
I feel good physically, I know I lost the first game, but sometimes, you need that extra game just to let yourself go a bit more. But I felt I really struggled today at the start, to get myself going. But somehow, being one game down and having that mental toughness to come through….
Lucy : Sometimes, the players like Vanessa who can put the ball away very easily, part of my game plan was to be solid and try to hard to break down, and make her have to hit winners from difficult positions, which she did. She went for a few shots, a few came off but quite a few hit the tin.
The rallies weren’t long so not hard physically, a short match. But hopefully the short sharp rallies will sharp me up for tomorrow’s match. I played Cindy at the British Open just gone, so I know how she plays quite similar to Vanessa actually, she goes for her shots and quite tricky and skilful. Looking forward to it.
Farida : I had a change of draw but that was fine, I worked on my game plan a couple of days ago. I was sooo excited to play today because of the COVID situation and Egypt being on the UK red list, I had to miss the last two events, plus, the one before I didn’t play really well.
Incredibly, I’m playing again Sarah Jane tomorrow, exactly like last year, second round, same event, where I beat her 3/0. I KNOW this time she will be ready for me, but who knows! I know for sure it won’t be easy, not like last time, it will be harder, because of course she wants her revenge, but I’m so excited to play especially this event I really like.
Hana : Zeina and I go way back, we play against each other a lot, we train together, we travel together, so it’s really tough every time we play together, very annoying.
But we push each other every time, we get the best out of each other. It’s very mental, It’s always hard to keep your emotions and get your game out. We know each other’s game very well. It’s always a challenge…
I got 4 or 5 match balls, that’s why I was screaming!
But what’s helped me today was that I was trying to stay calm. It’s easy to get frustrated and play aggressively, and lose the intensity. So I was just focusing on playing my shots.
I missed a few match balls, so I was trying to stay calm, and get that shot it. I’m so glad it didn’t go to 5…
