[6] Nouran Gohar (Egy) 3-1 [3] Nour ElSherbini (Egy) 11-7, 7-11, 11-5, 11-4 (44m)
Playing Nour is something very familiar to me, so during the match it all felt quite simple. But once I’d won, I thought: this is impossible. My second tournament back, I beat Nour, I’m in the semi-finals in front of the Pyramids… If someone had told me that five months ago, when I had my daughter, I’d have said: ‘You’re crazy, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’ “I feel very lucky to have shared this rivalry with ElSherbini. It has made me improve as a player, as a person, everything. And coming back to that familiar person, we have huge respect for each other. It felt very enjoyable to be a part of. “If this [the court change] had happened 10 years ago before I got married, I think I wouldn’t have hit a ball because I’m a very structured person. When I got married, I learned how to adapt. Plus, being a mum, all your plans go out the window. So today was just a funny situation for me, but I think I have really matured as a person and I just saw the positives out of it. “There were a lot of changes tonight. Usually I like things to be structured and organised. Playing in front of the Pyramids was so exciting for me, it gave me so much energy. And then everything changed: no crowd, nothing. It’s really different. I needed a bit of time to regroup, and that’s why I needed people to give me my space and let me breathe.” “I think what made the difference was the pace, especially on a traditional court. And the variation, too. I had my power shots, that’s my game, but I also played some drops. I think she felt I was reading the game well, that I knew exactly what she was going to do. We’ve played each other 40 times on the tour. When you’ve played someone 40 times, I think you know them better than they know themselves. I know what she’s thinking before she even thinks it! The third game was decisive. At 8-3, I think, there were two long rallies, and I could feel she was really tired. Not physically, mentally. She felt it, and so did I. So I knew that in the fourth game she would make errors. And that’s exactly what happened: on the first and third points, she hit the tin on two backhand drops she would normally make. At that moment, I knew I had her.” 
