[3] Nouran Gohar (EGY) bt [12] Sabrina Sobhy (USA) 11-3, 11-4, 11-1 (28m)
next opponent: Nour El Tayeb
I think the most striking of the match was Nouran’s new look, a bright pink outfit, totally out of her normal wardrobe. Apparently, an idea from her mum, and to be fair, it works! One should always listen to one’s mum….
More seriously, Sabrina never got a chance to get into the match. The rallies were extremely short, Nouran, supported by the numerous crowd, was not taking any time to think about anything but wining the points as quickly and as sharply as possible.
Hence the length of the games, 8m, 10m and 4m, Nouran going up to 9/0 before the American managed to score her point.
Clinical from the Pink Terminator.
“I thought that would be a nice start to come off, zero errors in the match. I feel like I was playing attacking squash and not much defensive. It’s always a confidence boost to see yourself not hitting a lot of errors. Hopefully, I can keep this going!
“First of all I want to say that Sabrina is a top quality player and she knows how to play the game very well – she’s very smart and very quick as well. I had to be smart with the way I’m playing and not give her any openings or something in the front as she could chop it into the nick.
“She proved my point more than once that she’s capable of beating the top players on her day and I was trying to be as sharp as possible from the beginning to not make it hard for myself as I know it can be very tough with her.
“I’m just glad with the way I got into the game. It’s always tricky playing your first match on the glass court with all these factors were on my mind and I’m pretty happy with it.”
