A busy opening day at the Cairo Stadium with 32 first round matches as the second PSA Challenger event gets under way – highlights below …
🙍♀️ Wildcards Fayrouz Aboelkheir, Zeina Zein and Malak Khafagy all take out seeds
🙍♂️ Iraqi Mohamed Ferman Hassan among four unseeded players to move into last 16
Challenger #2 Main Page + Draws & Results
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For the morning session, Chapeau to Fayrouz Aboelkheir, as she managed to oust Nadeed Kobt in 21m 3/0, after qualifying for the U17 Junior Finals last night late. She will play her final tonight bless her…
Longest match so far was played between Mohamed Nasser and Ziad Ibrahim, 83m, and the score does tell the story! 18-16, 4-11, 10-12, 13-11, 11-9 … Good news Mohamed, you are doing it all again tomorrow, this time against Ahmed Hosny, third seed.
Shortest match, [4] Diana Garcia from Mexico against Nour Wageeh, who retired injured after 4m….
Alert – Upset
Mohamed Ferman Hassan (IRQ) 3-2 [6] Marwan Tarek 11-4, 7-11, 13-11, 3-11, 11-4 (56m)
Not the result expected as the former World Junior Champion is ousted in 5 game by an unseeded player from Iraq. Down 2/1, the Egyptian forced a decider but finally bowed 11/4 in the 5th.
Also, a good performance from Wild Card Zeina Zein who beat [12] Nour Ramy in 4 games.
Pfew Alert
[4] Omar ElKattan (EGY) 3-2 [WC] Adham El Saidy (EGY) 8-11, 11-9, 8-11, 11-7, 11-5 (50m)
No respect for the seeds those young guns, and Omar Elkattan will be very happy to get through that one, 11/5 in the 5th….
Nice to see you back Alert
Amina Yousry (EGY) 3-1 [16] Nada Ehab (EGY) 9-11, 11-2, 11-6, 11-8 (35m)
One extremely talented and bright young lady that went to the States – in grey- to do her studies thanks to her high level in Squash. She is back at the moment – hence doing a few PSA – and had to rush off to her classes which started 10m before the end of the match. “Relaxing is not the word I would use” said Amina rushing to the showers… A good effort from Nada who as usual, fought until the last shot…
Injury – Alert…
[2] Sana Ibrahim (Egy) 3-0 Lojayn Gohary (Egy) 11-2, 9-2 retired (5m)
So sorry to speak with Lojayn after her short match as the young Egyptian hope got injured in the Nationals last week as she was leading 2/1… She was hoping her ankle would have recovered for the Challenger, but unfortunately, Sana is too good of an opponent not to expose her movement, and the match was short lived…
Double or not double Alert
[WC] Malak Khafagy (EGY) 3-2 [9] Nardine Garas (EGY) 9-11, 11-7, 17-15, 9-11, 11-9 (48m)
This was a tough one and was always going to be a tough one. Malak, wild card for the event, reached the final three weeks ago of the first PSA Challenger in the Cairo Stadium, ousting seed 1 Hanah Moataz in the semis. And she was hungry against Nardine today.
A tight match the whole way, with a lot of contact, strokes, and a lot of decisions. The last one of the match, 10/9 match ball, is seen not up by a lot of people, but not the ref that sees it good and calls it as such. As Nardine objected loudly, Malak assured her shot was good. Point, game and match to Malak. The Garas support camp made their opinion about the subject to the Ref…