Arnold and Blake On Collision Course In $10K WSA Delaware Open
by Ray Chan-A-Sue
February 3, 2012 -The quarter finals night of the 2012 CSC Delaware State Open began with a mini upset, with Lauren Selby of England beating Sina Wall of Germany in five tough games. The two players are separated by four spots in the rankings so this match up definitely was going to be the contest of the evening. In the first game Selby playing a ball control game to gain position, and had her opponent moving to all corners of the court, before finishing off with a beautiful drop shots at the front.
However , Wall’s persistence paid off and aided by some of Selby’s mistakes clawed her way back into the game forcing the game into a tie breaker only to squander a game point on a back hand drop shot from the back corner. Selby immediately used this to her advantage and closed out the game 13-11. The next game, Wall came out and played solid basic squash cutting down her errors while forcing Selby to move more which allow Wall to gain easy put always, and tying the match at one game apiece.
In the third, Selby picked up the pace , a tactic which seem to work for her as she raced out to a 9-2 lead and eventually holding off a more attacking Wall for a 11-7 game win. Wall responded in the fourth by making sure she did not give up the lead, and now being more aggressive, she jump out to her own lead in the middle of the game, which led to her tying up the match at two all. In the fifth, Selby gained a early 7-2 lead and never relinquishing it again to advance to tomorrow’s semi-final.
Her opponent will be Aisling Blake of Ireland, who took care of business in typical clinical fashion. While Olga Ertlova, did put up a spirited fight in the third game, the consistency of Blake was just too much in the end. The other semi-final match up between the #1 seeded Delia Arnold of Malaysia and Latasha Khan of USA, who both won fairly easily, should provide an interesting battle, as both players play attacking squash and are veterans of the tour.
Quarterfinal Results, $10K WSA Delaware Open
#6 Lauren Selby (ENG) bt. #4 Sina Wall (GER) –3-2 ( 13-11,7-11,11-7,9-11,11-7)
#3 Latasha Khan (USA) bt. #5 Miranda Ranieri (CAN) –3-0 (11-6, 11-5, 11-4)
#2 Aisling Blake (IRL) bt. #7 Olga Ertlova(CZE) – 3-0 (11-2,11-4,11-9)
#1 Delia Arnold (MAS) bt. # Thaisia Serafini (BRA) – 3-0 ( 11-3, 11-4, 11-4)
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