Kingston upon Hull, UK: Nour El Sherbini, attempting to become the first woman in more than a decade to make a successful defence of the British Open title, accelerated impressively into the quarter-finals yesterday.
The top-seeded Egyptian’s 11-4, 11-8, 11-6 second round success against Annie Au, a skillfully deceptive world number ten from Hong Kong, took only 25 minutes, which means Sherbini has had less than an hour of squash and now has a rest day.
Only briefly, when Au reduced a five-point deficit to one at 8-9 in the second game did it seem she might have enough tricks to disrupt the world number one.
But in the third game Sherbini showed how and why, aged only 22, she has the most domineering armoury on the women’s tour, mingling heavy drives with a greater ratio of volleys and a much-improved ability to counter her opponent’s nimble and accurate forays into the front court.
Energy
“It does help to save some energy,” said Sherbini. “And getting to the later stages fresh is important.”
Fresh or under-played, Sherbini still looks likely to continue high speed progress, for her next opponent is a surprise survivor – Emily Whitlock, a 23-year-old who reached the quarter-finals for the first time with an 11-4, 11-7, 11-9 win over her eighth-seeded English compatriot Alison Waters.
Already the British Open’s second day was suggesting that Egypt, which created history last year by becoming the first country to provide all four finalists, is tightening its grip on both competitions again.
Tarek Momen, the eighth-seed from Cairo, won a superb encounter between two of the fastest men on the circuit, by 11-6, 11-8, 20-18 against Paul Coll, the world number 16 from New Zealand.