[14] Farida Mohamed (EGY) 3-1 Lauren Baltayan (FRA) 11-5, 7-11, 11-3, 11-5 (36m)
As both girls are coached by the same Ahmed Effat, both girls were coached by their mum today….
Farida
It was so difficult for so many reasons.
One, Lauren is a younger sister for me. I love her so so much. She has so much potential, so much to give to the sport, it was very emotional to get on court today. I really wanted her to win yesterday but still… I really didn’t want to have to be in that situation and play her.
Also, because we share the same coach, one of the advantages of playing in Egypt is having your coach with you. Especially for the first tournament of the season. So not having him was also a big challenge.
I tried to focus on myself today. I didn’t want to get into any emotional distraction because I love her or because she sees me every day at practice, she knows everything about me… I’m happy with the way I managed the match.
I feel I was 90% calm on court, even when I was a bit distracted by whatever happened, it was very minimal, and I was able to come back really quickly, trying to calm myself down, and I manage to smile, even when it was very tense. Pretty happy with the way it went.
I’m playing Amina next. I’ll enjoy it, I like to play with the competition style players, like today was very competitive, but because we were trying our best to play really good squash with really good sportsmanship, even if there were a few contacts, it’s normal, I enjoyed it.
