[13] Salma Hany (EGY) 3-1 Rachel Arnold (MAS) 11-5, 2-11, 11-4, 17-15 (48m)
Intense match between Salma and Rachel. I have to say I’m impressed with Rachel’s improvement, her squash is getting extremely dangerous and despite have a huge mental and physical match yesterday, she really gave Heck to Salma today! Well done both for the digging in and intensity in particular in the 4th, as all the other games were 6m, and the last one over 20m!
Note that Rachel had 3 game balls I think and saved at least 4 match balls…
Salma
From my point of view, I knew it was going to be a testing match for me.
She has played a match yesterday, she is already in the tournament, in the zone, my first match of the season, you don’t know what to expect.
I expected the worst today, not to lose, but that I was going to win in an ugly way, and that if I was playing well, that would be a bonus. So I prepared myself for a fight.
I knew she had a huge match yesterday, I knew she could be a little tired today, but I also know how smart she is, tactically smart as well. So I gave her full respect, and I expected an intense match
We were both still testing each other in the first game, we played until 5/5, it was pretty tense, and then I managed to march on, obviously a very bad start in the second, she took advantage of it, it went so fast.
In the third, I tried to get myself in, that’s what I was cheering a lot today. I was screaming a lot, which is not me, it wasn’t about her, it was more like ‘come on, the season has started, wake up.
And the fourth as well, I was 6/1 or 7/1 down, and then, I told myself ‘you are a top player, you cannot give up a game and say let’s start again in the 5th. You are capable of coming back, just stay one point at a time. She is going to start to doubt it, so let’s just push on, and just fight.’
I told myself, ‘if she is going to take the game, make her earn it. Make her work for it. Don’t give her easy points’. That was the mentality. I wasn’t happy with the squash, I wasn’t happy I couldn’t find my targets, I wasn’t very accurate.
But that’s what I told you, it was one of the scenarios I had in my head, I’m going to win THAT way, and because I saw it that way, I managed to win the 4th.
