R1: Huge battle for Tinne against Sana….

Tinne Gilis (BEL) 3-0 Sana Ibrahim (EGY) 15-13, 12-10, 11-7 (56m)

Close, oh so close…. Two extremely fair players. Great squash. Fast and accurate. Good balance between attacking and basic game.

I’m sorry to admit I didn’t see the first game so I’m not sure if Sana has game balls there. I saw Tinne slipping going to the front, on her own, and how worried we all were. But it was just a little slip, and no damage there apparently.

The second game is such an incredible come back from the Belgium as she was down 7/0 with no fault of her own. A few errors from both at that point, 8/2, 9/4 for the Egyptian, playing out of her skin. What a stunning squash those two were producing, bouncing one on the other’s talent, if that makes sense?

Incredibly, the Belgian star kept pushing and clawed back from 6/10 game ball Sana scoring 5 points in a row, to 12/10 in 14m.

Sana was not happy as at the end of the game, there was a heavy contact between the two girls, and the Egyptian seemed to twist her knee. As it was a contributed injury, she asked if she could just check her knee, but was refused that privilege, I guess the ref thought she was trying to rest but it was a very harsh decision it seemed at the time.

Very hard mentally for the young 20 years told Sana to come back from there, 5/0 down, she managed to push through, 5/5, but Tinne found some exquisite attacks, crisp and all, 8/5. A last push from Sana, 7/8, but it’s 11/7 for Tinne, 11m last game.

It felt that the Egyptian girl deserved a game as she truly played superb and fair squash… but it wasn’t to be today.

Tinne

I was very happy with that first game, where I slipped and I was so worried about my knee, from my previous knee injury. But it’s not, I felt something in my hamstring but it’s not too bad. I am so happy I managed to squeeze that first game so I could reset and start the second game with a good momentum.

She was something like 7/0, 10/6 up in the second, but I told myself, ‘if someone can make 7 points in a row, so I can’. So I kept my focus, I stuck to my game plan. She started to get edgy at the end, she played a bit more in the middle, I got a few strokes, and I ended up squeezing that second game as well which gave me a big confidence boost.

And I just gave it my all in that last game. I was up in that last game, but she came back. I know she was tired, but she was so hard to beat, she hits such good shots, and so hard to play on those backcourts as they are so bouncy.

So I wanted to make it physical, it’s so bouncy so it’s so hard to win the points, and I was trying to make her tired. And she started to make errors, and I think that’s what happened at the end… Chuffed to be through…