[5] Cindy Merlo (SUI) 3-2 Asia Harris (ENG) 8-11, 11-6, 11-9, 11-13, 12-10 (47m)
Last night at the hotel, the lovely English Asia Harris was eating the same food I had earlier that day. But somehow, it didn’t go that well with her and she was poorly during the night. Not the best of conditions to play the first round of the first event of the season.
Still, her body language was “Nick Matthew” like, not showing the weakness, only the strength. And it nearly worked.
Cindy Merlo lives in Cairo now, in a lovely area of Cairo, very few tourists, called Dokki. She is very much loved by the Egyptian Squash community, which I thought might have played a role as she kept “wasting” match balls! Not as much wasting than her opponent clinching the points out of the Swiss racquet, again and again.
It was a very good match today, and if at times, I saw Asia’s movement being a bit awkward, today, none of that. A good clean match, fast pace, lots of running. Loved it me.
To be honest, the last two games are ridiculous squash and nail-biting rallies! More than 15m for each game, Asia in front 6/3, 7/, but the Swiss levelling, 8/8, while score 5 points to reach match ball, 10/8. The first match ball of many!!!! Bless…
Winners take care of those two match balls, and allow Asia to set up her own game ball, 11/10. A stroke awarded to Cindy, 11/11, and Asia closes the game 13/11, forcing a decider.
With two match balls gone and a lot of hard work produced, Cindy could have slowed down a bit. But no, she didn’t. 3/1 for the Swiss, then 3/3, 4/4, 5/5, 6/6, 7/7. Up goes Cindy again 10/7 third match ball. It would take only SIX MATCH BALLS for Cindy to finally clinch the match, 12/10.
Congrats to Cindy, and well done to Asia for not throwing the towel when she probably didn’t feel the best ever….
Cindy
I live in Egypt in a great local area, and I just love it. It’s good for my character. I stayed here during the summer and train as hard as I can.
We had a couple of traffic incidents today, but I feel that my shots were loose, my length was off, and so it happens. If I had been more accurate, it would not have happened as much.
I don’t know how I won that one, I guess I’m just lucky. I wasn’t playing my best squash, I had so many match balls, and she kept getting them back. But I just came here to enjoy my squash, and me being more relaxed played a role…
And the fact I had a lot of support probably too, although it put more pressure on me, as I try to make them proud of me…
