R3: [1] Nour El Sherbini (Egy) 3-2 [9/16] Amina Orfi (Egy)

[1] Nour El Sherbini (Egy) 3-2 [9/16] Amina Orfi (Egy) 6-11, 4-11, 11-2, 11-6, 11-9 (65m)

What to say about the match…. A few warnings for blocking against Amina at the end of the match. Was she really blocking, was she just tired and was a bit slower to move? you watch the replay and decide.

As for the rest, Amina has an incredible brain, who adapts with the data she gets from her matches. She absorbs the defeat, analyses it, and “spits out” an answer that incorporates all what she learned. Second time she plays Nour and she loses 11/9 in the 5th, not having won a single game in their previous encounter.

I feel that she got a bit too much pressure from her camp in the 4th. She needed to be nurtured at the time, not shouted at, in my opinion. And who am I to say that? She is where she is thanks to the support of that camp.

Today, she was coached by one of her two coaches, Abdel Fattah – her Gezira coach, three days a week. She also works with Ahmed Effat three times a week. Both were there to support the “Destroyer”…

The fifth is nail-biting. Nour is still up with the momentum, 5/2. A return of serve with a nick and 2 no lets later; we are back level, 5/5. From 7/7, Nour will score 3 points, match ball, 10/7. No-let, 8/10. Stroke to Amina, 9/10. But a final stroke to Nour, and it’s match, 11/9. The Nour’s camp finally exales…

I feel his 17-year-old little bomb of energy and accuracy is going to dominate the World soon…. As for Nour, it’s like the end of the season, a bit wobbly in the earlier rounds. Maybe the wedding and all that goes around it – it changes a life in Egypt, it’s not like the West where you get to live with your fiancé, it’s a all new discovery/life. I feel it might take a little while for the Princess to adapt and regroup, to come back stronger…

Nour :  “It’s definitely tough playing Amina. She’s upcoming, well she’s not upcoming anymore! It’s hard to play her when you’re not playing your best. I’m definitely not happy with the way I played at the beginning of the first two games but I tried to find a way, that’s it. It doesn’t matter what was happening, it just mattered that I won at the end.

“Definitely, I’ll regroup and talk with my team and try to avoid what happened today.

“Thankfully I had my coach here, Ahmed Shohayeb, he tried to just keep me there in every game. Even when I was 0-2 down, he kept me pushing and sticking to the gameplan, stick to the length and go for the opportunities I was missing.

“He told me to relax as much as I can, no stress, no pressure, the match is not over yet. Just keep playing for every point.”

On getting married during the summer, she said: “It was a very exciting summer for me. Very hectic on the squash side and without a proper off-season, and starting in a Diamond event is tricky and I just tried to grab everything I could last month. I’m in good shape and hopefully I’ll be better in the next round.”

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