Nour El Sherbini and Hania El Hammamy will contest the women’s final in Cairo after semi-final wins over Gina Kennedy and Nouran Gohar …
[1] Nour El Sherbini (Egy) 3-0 Georgina Kennedy (Eng) 11-7, 11-5, 11-3 (26m)
[3] Hania El Hammamy (Egy) 3-1 [2] Nouran Gohar (Egy) 11-8, 8-11, 11-4 rtd (55m)
Sherbini ends Gina’s run
Top seed Nour El Sherbini brought unseeded Gina Kennedy‘s run to an end as the World #1 despatched the rising English star in straight games in the first semi-final.
Sherbini was dominant from the start and despite he best efforts Gina never got close enough to threaten as Nour eased into her fourth CIB Black Ball final.
Nour : “It was a tough match playing Gina for the first time,”
“She has been playing amazing, she’s very fit and playing really good squash and I had to get my A plan to play her. I knew how big an event this was for her and playing in the semi-final is big, but I’m really happy with my performance and that I knew how to play against her.
“I might watch a little bit of the next match, I know it’s going to be a very tough one, both are in top form and playing well this season. I’ve played a lot of good matches with both of them and actually lost against both of them last time, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow and whoever is going to win hopefully I’ll be ready for.”
Gina : “Obviously going into the match I was pretty nervous with how big the event is and it being my first Gold semi-final.
“There were quite a lot of nerves going into it and that coupled with playing the World No.1. I was quite disappointed with how I played there, from the moment I stepped on the court it felt a lot more dead than it has done in the past couple of days. I knew the ball was dying off and I could see Nour was struggling a bit in the first and we both had a few complete mishits. I felt like I couldn’t really find my feet, partly down to the quality of her and the hold she puts on every shot, but my quality wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be today.
“It was really exciting to break into the top 20 in January. I come into these events as the unseeded player but I’m not satisfied with just getting to the first or second round, I want to make the backend of tournaments and I’m proud of myself for doing that. At the beginning of 2022 I want to keep pushing and bridging the gap between the top girls.
“The highlight has been being here in general, I’ve been watching Black Ball for ages and obviously a highlight would be beating SJ for the first time, she’s such a quality player and it was really exciting for me.”
Hania through as Nouran pulls up
Hania El Hammay is through to her third Black Ball final after Nouran Gohar pulled up injured after three games of their semi-final, with Hania leading two games to one.
“It’s always tough playing against Nouran and it’s not the way I wanted to get the first win against her – I’ve never beaten her, not in juniors, not in training, not anywhere to be honest,”
It’s not a great feeling to win this way and hopefully she recovers soon and we have many more tough matches.
“I was just focusing on my game plan and focusing on what I was doing. Today I felt really good on court and I didn’t want to lose my focus or lose my game plan at all. I don’t think I even noticed anything, but definitely something happened to Nouran and I didn’t see it.
I wish her a speedy recovery and hopefully she is back soon.
It’s going to be a tough match tomorrow. I love playing against Nour, it’s an honour playing against her and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s match.”
