[4] Amina Orfi (EGY) 3-0 [14] Farida Mohamed (EGY) 11-5, 11-7, 12-10 (43m)
Not sure those two will send each other Christmas cards this year.
It’s the kind of matches English well educated observers would describe as ‘a bit of history between them’.
What history, not sure but one thing is sure, they don’t appreciate playing against each other. And even at times, we saw Farida pushing Amina as Farida was trying to play the ball or move towards it.
Farida kept smiling, which is her defence wall against losing her temper. But she was asking the ref a lot of decisions about Amina’s movement. The ref gave a few lets, but nothing more than that (I think, I might have missed one).
Both were hitting and running like a mixture of Nouran and Hania. Hit and run, hard, and retrieve everything.
Amina took the control of the first game, 2/0 8/3, 11/5 in 9m. But Farida got better at finding her rhythm in the second, even if the score is still about Amina, 6/2, 7/4, 9/6, 11/7, 12m of hard work at a mad pace.
It looked that the more the match advanced, the better at containing Amina Farida was getting! 4/4, 6/6, 7/7, 9/9, game ball to a very intense Farida, 10/9.
A huge ridiculous rally at that point, but Farida ends up making a double bounce. She won’t have another opportunity to force a decider, and Amina closes the match 12/10 in 18m. Very intense indeed.
Note that Omar Mosaad is now coaching Amina, while Ahmed Effat is coaching Farida.
Amina
“Well I know Farida’s game style. We played twice last season, but I knew that if she got an opportunity, she would go for it. I put my plan around that, basically.
“I started my season in July with the World Juniors and then followed by London I think it gave me a little bit of an edge that I have played matches already. Still, everyone has had good pre-season training.
“It’s a new match, it’s a new tournament, different venue, different court, so I’m going to review our match last time, review her match from this tournament and see how it goes!”
