Jasmine Hutton (ENG) 3-0 Zeina Mickawy (EGY) 11-2, 11-9, 11-5 (28m)
An excellent start for Jasmine, 11/2 in 6m, but Zeina upping her game from that point on. A good battle in the second, but the English got a good grip on the match in the third.
Jasmine : The difference between the first and second game is a mixture, she played a lot better, she started quite nervous, and I came out kind of firing. Which was a good thing as I knew as I was told she might come out firing and hit the ball quite harder, so I wanted to prepare myself for that.
Second element is when you take a game quite comfortably like that, you get a little more edgy because you know they are going to come back even stronger. So I was trying to weather the storm and prepare to come a little better in the next game.
I kept my game pretty similar throughout the match. At time, I tried to play really slow, which is not my kind of game style, as I like to play quite hard and fast like Zeina. I was lob serving quite a lot, as every time I hit one of those, she hit an error on the return. I told myself she was not going to do anything different, so I kept my game style the same.
I was pretty disappointed with last season, I came out strong winning the Nationals, then I had a few health complications, I had an operation, also my ankle injury coming back. So almost as soon as I started getting in form again, I got another injury, so it was really frustrating and mentally quite tough.
But I started this season with the same ranking than I had at the start of the previous season, so I’m trying to forget the last season ever happened. And start fresh. And physically, I FEEL GREAT, touch wood. And excited.
