El Tayeb Beats Perry to Win $50K Carol Weymuller Open by Linda Elriani
photo Reynold Chan
October 22, 2018
Hi Everyone,
Today was the final day of our 2018 Carol Weymuller Open. It's been a
tremendous week of squash and the PSA players have definitely left
everyone inspired and motivated. The tournament is obviously named
after Carol Weymuller herself. Carol started the junior squash program
here at The Heights Casino many years back with her late husband Fred,
and it has obviously grown and expanded along with the sport. We always
like to thank Carol for all her hard work and dedication back at the
start, as we wouldn't be where we are today with our program if she had
not been forward thinking enough to develop squash in this area.
At 7.30pm the bleachers were packed with eager members, anticipating
the outcome. Our 2018 finalists were Sarah-Jane Perry from England. She
is the world # 8 playing against Nour El Tayeb from Egypt, who is world
#3 and the 2017 US Open Champion. Both players looked bouncy and eager
to go on knowing this was their last huge effort after a very
successful and tiring week at the Weymuller.
Nour and Sarah-Jane will go off to Hong Kong soon and their next big
PSA event of 2019 will be back in NYC for the TOC in Grand Central
Station in mid January, so we are lucky to all these amazing players
back in the city in the near future.
They both first played in the world juniors and Sarah-Jane won but
since then they have played and Nour is 4-1 up in the head to heads,
but every one of these 4 matches went to five games. So it was going to
be interesting to see if they would have another epic five setter match
tonight.
This match was going to be particularly interesting as both players,
whilst very much on-form, play with quite different styles. Sarah-Jane
is six foot tall and plays a precise and attacking game with a
wonderful change of pace, stepping forward on the court and has more
traditional tactics of cutting the ball off around the T. Nour varies
the pace and goes short whenever possible with colorful creative shots
whenever she feels there is a apace open on the court. Nour dives for
balls and she tries to twist and turn her opponent and take away their
rhythm. Who was going to manage to force their game plan over the
other? We'd soon find out!!!!
In the first game Nour hit her first ball on the return of serve into
the nick, so we can assume that she wasn’t feeling any nerves going
into the final! Even though Nour won that first point it was actually
Sarah-Jane that settled into her game plan the quickest, keeping the T
and hitting some great deep and tight lengths to give her 5-2 lead. The
rallies were fantastic quality with players playing smart but creative
squash which was so much fun to watch. Nour started to find her rhythm
and slowly but surely you could feel her start to control the first
game. With an array of winners and a couple of errors from Sarah-Jane
Nour went through to take the first game 11-8.
The second game started in the same fashion as the first with
Sarah-Jane taking a 5-2 lead still with equally fantastic rallies and
efforts from both players. In this match in particular it was being
played with a wonderful spirit and even though they clearly both wanted
to leave as the Weymuller Champion, they were very much enjoying the
fact they had fought their way to the final. Maybe it was because they
had reached the final and already done so well, but each rally was
contested as hard as possible, but both players managed to have a smile
on their faces in between rallies when something funny happened or one
of the players made a cheeky remark.
As in the first game Nour pushed back, and with a cross court drive
straight into the nick and a perfect backhand drop, Nour once again
found her previous rhythm. Sarah-Jane lost a little of her previous
length and the game evened up at 6-6. The game continued on with such
closely contested rallies and neither player could afford to give the
other even an inch. The game evened up at 9-9 and with a perfect length
it was Nour that got the first game ball. You could see that Sarah-Jane
did not want to be 2-0 down and risky but perfect cross court nick
evened the game once again to 10-10. In the next two rallies Sarah-Jane
really upped her game producing a perfect crosscourt so wide that Nour
threw her racket to try and retrieve it, and a perfect held trickle
boast to take the games to 1-1, winning the second game 12-10.
In the third game it was Nour’s turn to get a 5-2 lead. A determined
Sarah-Jane gave a big to push to not let Nour’s lead get away from her
and she some plugged back to 6-6. This was the last point that
Sarah-Jane won in the 3rd game. While Sarah-Jane was still producing
some fantastic squash and putting in 100% effort, Nour was making very
few errors and making it incredibly hard for Sarah-Jane to create any
openings for herself. A series of wonderful shots from Nour and a
forehand volley straight into the nick took her to the 2-1 lead she
wanted winning the 3rd game 11-6.
Even though Sarah-Jane lost the third game she came out strong in the
4th taking a 5-3 lead. We were left wondering if Sarah-Jane could take
this to a 5th five setter in a row! Each time Sarah-Jane worked hard
for a small 2 point advantage, Nour seemed to very quickly whip 2
points back again. The game evened up at 7-7 and with a volley boast
error from Sarah-Jane and a lucky scrap off an incredibly tight length,
Nour seemly had the gods on her side today. Nour must have felt it was
her time as she finished the last 2 points of the match with very
impressive volley nicks winning the final game 11-8.
Nour El Tayeb managed to win her first Carol Weymuller Open title
beating Sarah-Jane Perry (3-1) 11-8, 10-12, 11-6, 11-8 in 50 minutes.
Watching both players display world class, hard fought squash with such
tremendous sportsmanship and respect for each other was really
heartwarming and inspiring. We were all very privileged to witness this
match this evening and it definitely makes us already feel excited to
have them all back for the 2019 Carol Weymuller Open!!
After the final I interviewed the very happy Nour. She said "At the
beginning of this season I think I put too much pressure on myself to
do better than last year. Being in the top 4 area I was too desperate.
When I was interviewed at another tournament they said that I had
created a rivalry between me, Nour and Raneem and this put on more
pressure. I should have enjoyed it more being in the mix. Then I lost
early last week too so I just thought I should enjoy, relax and give it
the best I could and this result shouldn’t matter. SJ is very positive
and whether she wins or loses she takes more from the match than if she
puts pressure on herself. Over the last 2 years there have been a lot
of changes in my life, being married to Ali who helps me a lot,
together with Haitham Effat and Hossam Nasser, who has added a lot of
attacking to my game and Ali Ismail my fitness coach , he has made me
fit enough to back up my matches. Thanks to them all.”
When I spoke to Sarah-Jane after the final she seemed pretty happy and
she said "I thought that was the best I played all week. Unfortunately
she just made a few less errors. It was a really high quality match.
It’s not often you are going to play that well and lose. Credit to
Nour. I get round further each time I come so I’m definitely playing
here next year!! It’s been a great week. It’s time to go home after
literally a month in the US! Next stop Hong Kong.”
