[1] Nardine Garas (EGY) 3-0 [11] Hana Ismail (EGY) 11-7, 11-6, 11-8 (20m)
Strange/nice to sit between Karim Ali (coach to Nardine) and Andrew Shoukry (coach to Hana), instead of watching them battle away on there…
I didn’t expect such a one-sided match to be honest. Renseignements pris (after chatting with Andrew), Hana is just coming back from injury, not fit at all, and it showed. Her return of serve was a bit weak, and opened the court to Nardine, in complete control of the rallies, forcing Hana to run far too much for her fitness… Hana never gave up but her frustration grew as the match went along. Nardine will be very happy with her clinical performance today, after a tough, gritty, witty match yesterday against up-and-coming Nadien…
Nardine
My win yesterday against Nadien gave me a lot of confidence, especially as we had played with Hana once in PSA, and it was a 3/2 tough win!
Yesterday’s match was only mental, as I just lost to her a week before, so I was very nervous. But today, I played really well, and I controlled the game really well.
Tactically, I played my shots deep to the back to be able to take my volley and control the game, and I was moving well as well.
[2] Alicia Mead (ENG) bt Farida Walid (EGY) 11-6, 8-11, 11-7, 11-8 (42m)
Alicia
It’s very tricky playing an up-and-coming Egyptian in their home country, with the home support. She is very tricky and I had to be on it and really focused from the start.
I felt I was doing the basics better, but if I left anything loose in the middle, she was clinical, very attacking – as they all are!
As long as I did the basics right, I was confident; if I could get the lines through, I would get some slip-ups, but she made it very difficult for me. They are no mugs these young girls with no ranking coming through, they are all very difficult and competitive.
I’m actually very pleased to come through a tricky match against somebody 12 years younger than me!
