RESULTS: Women's Hurghada Squash International, Hurghada, Egypt
Semi-finals:
[1] Rachael Grinham (AUS) bt [4] Engy Kheirallah (EGY) 10-8, 9-2, 9-3 (56m)
[2] Omneya Abdel Kawy (EGY) bt [8] Raneem El Weleily (EGY) 8-10, 9-6, 9-0, 9-10, 9-1 (65m)
Grinham & Kawy Celebrate Hurghada Final Hat-Trick
Australia's Rachael Grinham and Egypt's Omneya Abdel Kawy will face each other in the final of the Women's Hurghada Squash International for the third successive year after surviving lengthy and testing semi-finals on the all-glass court on the main promenade of the Red Sea resort of Hurghada in Egypt.
Top seed Grinham, the defending champion looking for her third title in a row, suffered a slow start in her match against rising Egypt star Engy Kheirallah, the 24-year-old from Alexandria who burst into the world's top twenty in December last year. Indeed Kheirallah, who beat the former world number one in an invitation tournament at Gezira in Cairo only a month ago, raced to a 6-0 lead in the opening game.
After reaching game ball at 8-5, Kheirallah seemed to lose a little of her purpose and allowed the elfin-like Australian to clamber back to eight-all and then take the game with a rasping forehand drive that the Egyptian could only wave on its way.
From then on, the momentum was with Grinham, and despite her opponent's well known stubbornness the remainder of the match was straightforward – and, after 56 minutes, Grinham clinched her 10-8, 9-2, 9-3 victory.
Kheirallah has shown sustained improvement this year, something she puts down to playing more with men. “I used to have a very soft game but I have been trying to harden it and be more attacking,” said the Egyptian No2.
Afterwards the winner acknowledged the importance of the first game: “It made a huge difference winning it,” said Grinham, the 29-year-old from Queensland celebrating her 34th appearance in a WISPA World Tour final. "I was aware that if she took it her confidence would grow. I knew that she has been playing well, probably top ten standard, so I needed to get ahead of her mentally. She started so sharply that I was hanging on. I wasn't doing anything wrong in the first, but snatching it gave me the initiative."
When told that Grinham had suggested that she is already playing to world top ten standard, Kheirallah pinpointed the position as her target for the end of the year – as well as to be part of an Egyptian team that could do better than their best ever fourth spot in the Women's World Teams.
It turned out to be a disappointing evening for Alexandrians when eighth seed Raneem El Weleily, the 17-year-old world junior champion who hails from the same Mediterranean city as Kheirallah, went down 8-10, 9-6, 9-0, 9-10, 9-1 to second seed Omneya Abdel Kawy.
Kawy settled first and reached 6-1 in the opening game – but El Weleily fought back to take a one-game lead. The second was close until the latter stages when El Weleily faltered by losing her shape – and in the third, the teenager peppered the tin to lose it 9-0 in a mere five minutes.
She continued in this vein until she was 7-0 down in the fourth - thus two points away from defeat. At which point El Weleily began to play constructive squash again – which led to taking the game and drawing level.
But it was the more experienced Kawy – albeit only three years older at 20 - who had the upper hand in the decider to clinch victory after 65 minutes.
El Weleily gathered up her bag and rushed from the court, distressed by the defeat. Meanwhile, the winner was basking in the adulation of the crowd that were chanting her name.
Some of this was clearly relief, as Kawy – now in her 12th WISPA final - explained: "I was so scared because Raneem is very good, so fit and so young."