The first PSA Diamond Level event of the season continued today with qualifying finals at the OWest Complex.
In the women’s event the top four seeds all started in the finals, with top seeded Egyptian Nardine Garas and fourth seeded Spaniard Marta Dominguez both advancing handily. Sixteenth seed Toby Tse of Hong Kong dominated third seed Haya Ali to move through to the main draw while ninth seeded Lauren Baltayan of France benefitted from an unwell second seed Alicia Mead.
In the men’s matches England’s Patrick Rooney was the only one left of the top seeds and he was impressive as he denied Yassin Elshafei in three. Colombia’s Matias Knudsen came through a second successive five game thriller to beat Simon Herbert, while unseeded Ivan Perez of Spain and Matthew Lai of Hong Kong also won thrilling encounters to book their main draw spots.
Check out how they all got there in the reports below …
Women’s Qualifying Finals :
[9] Lauren Baltayan (Fra) 3-0 [2] Alicia Mead (Eng) 11-4, 9-2 rtd (13m)
[1] Nardine Garas (Egy) 3-1 [6] Habiba Hani (Egy) 11-6, 12-10, 5-11, 11-5 (36m)
[16] Toby Tse (Hkg) 3-0 [3] Haya Ali (Egy) 11-7, 11-6, 11-6 (20m)
[4] Marta Dominguez (Esp) 3-0 [15] Nour Megahed (Egy) 11-5, 11-6, 11-9 (27m)
Men’s Qualifying Finals :
[1] Patrick Rooney (Eng) 3-0 [15] Yassin Elshafei (Egy) 11-3, 11-9, 11-3 (27m)
[10] Matias Knudsen (Col) 3-2 [9] Simon Herbert (Eng) 11-4, 11-5, 12-14, 5-11, 11-7 (57m)
Ivan Perez (Esp) 3-2 [6] Yannick Wilhelmi (Sui) 5-11, 11-8, 11-7, 8-11, 11-8 (90m)
Matthew Lai (Hkg) 3-1 Rowan Damming (Ned) 11-6, 5-11, 15-13, 11-3 (50m)
The qualifiers will learn who they play when the draw is made at tomorrow evening’s opening function.
Reports & Reaction
