World No 1 El Sherbini Wins 2016 Weymuller Open by Linda Elriani
photos Jean Ervasti
October 24, 2016
Hi Everyone,
Today was the final day of our 2016 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 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 2016 finalists were Alison Waters from England and she
is the 2014 Carol Weymuller Champion and former world # 3, and Nour El
Sherbini from Egypt, is the world champion and world #1. 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 Alison will go off to other countries to play other
tournaments soon. They will both be competing in the World Team
Championships the first week of December in Paris, France. With the
England and Egyptian teams being two of the stronger squash nationals,
especially with the amazing depth of each team, they may be playing
again soon! England are actually the defending World Team Champions so
maybe they can bring home the trophy once again. Their next big PSA
event will be back in NYC for the TOC in Grand Central Station January,
so we are lucky to all these amazing players back in the town in the
near future.
In the head to head Ali is 4-2 up, but both players have had plenty of
experience in finals. Nour has competed in 59 Tour events in her
career, playing 183 matches and winning 132. She has won 8 titles and
tonight is playing in her 17th final. Ali has competed in 155 Tour
events, playing 397 matches and winning 252. She has won 10 titles and
tonight was her 23rd final. All very impressive!
They last played at the US Open 10 days ago where Nour came away the
victor, but Ali won in a momentous five setter at the TOC in 2015, so
it would be very interesting see which player could come away the Champ
tonight.
This match was going to be particularly interesting as both players,
whilst very much on-form, play very different styles. Ali plays a very
fast, precise and attacking game, stepping forward on the court and has
more traditional tactics of cutting the ball off around the T. Nour
varies the pace more and goes short with wonderful creative shots at
almost every opportunity and 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!!!!
Nour came out in the first one game fire and with a couple of strokes
against Ali too, she was very soon 6-1 up. Ali seemed to settle in more
and with a couple of errors from Nour and Ali fading a wonderful slow
backhand drop into the front she climbed back to 4-6. A push from Nour
gave her back a big margin five point margin to 9-4. After a decision
from the ref that Ali wasn’t too keen on she suddenly start pushing up
the court, taking the ball much earlier and slotting in some amazing
shot shorts. Nour’s lengths were a little on the short side and Ali
took complete advantage of them. Ali stormed through to take the next 6
point in a row, showing us just how skillful and deceptive she can be.
At 10-9 Ali had her first game ball and Nour took away her chance with
a perfect cross court drive that died in the back to equalize at 10-10.
It then got a little tense and there were a series of let balls until
Ali managed to hit a hard, flat drive past Nour to give her the second
chance at 11-10 to win the first game. After a long rally Nour got a
dubious stroke to get her back even 11-11. Another long and hard fought
rally and Ali made a wrong shot choice to set Nour up on the forehand
to smack the ball down the wall away from her. This gave Nour her first
game ball and in true Nour style she played her game ball unflinchingly
and even finished the point with a perfect flick crosscourt over to the
forehand that left Ali stranded on the backhand. Nour took the first
13/11.
The second game started evenly with both players trying hard to control
the middle of the court, playing some delightful and exciting squash
and it stayed pretty even until 6-5. Nour then surged ahead with some
wonderful and creative winners that Ali desperately tried to stop but
to no avail. Nour went through to win the second game 11/6 with a
perfect backhand drop.
The third started with some long and hard fought rallies with flashes
of excellence from Ali, but she just couldn’t manage to contain the
skillful and light footed Nour. Nour really had an answer for
everything that Ali threw at her! Ali had had 2 five set matches to
bring her through to the final and it was now that maybe it was taking
its toll on her and showing through some errors, but she still kept
hanging in there and fighting for each point. Nour is looking fitter
than ever and really is such a fearless competitor and mature beyond
her years. Nour was almost getting better and better as the third game
went on and with a number of very impressive flicks, dying lengths and
drops she went straight through from 4-3 to 11-3 in one hand to become
the much deserved 2016 Carol Weymuller Champion!
After the final I interviewed the very happy Nour. She said “It’s a
thrill to defend my title again this year after winning it last year
and that was the start of a really special season, so let’s hope that
this will be the start of a special season again this year!” When
I asked Nour if she gets nervous before she plays, she said, “Yes, I
get a little nervous before all my matches, but once I’m on the court
I’m ok and I just have fun!” Well, we can see that this is the case and
we certainly have a lot of fun too watching Nour in action too!!
Nour El Sherbini beat Alison Waters 13/11, 11/6, 11/3 in 40 minutes.
I'd like to say a HUGE thank you to some key people who have put a lot
of time, effort and generosity into making this tournament what it is.
Firstly our corporate sponsors Corcoran, who generously support us year
after year (14th year this year!) and help so much towards the prize
fund and Leslie Marshall for helping us with this.
To Lassen and Hennigs who very generously provided a wonderful spread
of breakfast food for our players each day. It's very much appreciated
and enjoyed!
To Five Acre Farms for providing delicious organic food and drink this week. It's been a pleasure to sample it all!
To Key Food for providing the tournament with sports drinks all week and keeping everyone hydrated and energized!
To all our amazing members who bought tickets for the quarters, semis
and finals which contributed towards the prize fund. We wouldn't have a
tournament if we didn't have this incredible support. We had such a
great entry yet again and the matches were so strong and of such high
caliber all the way through from the qualification to the final.
To all the PSA players for choosing to come and play our event and for
playing such beautiful squash and inspiring all of us, especially our
juniors, and taking the time to get on court with them at the Play a
Pro. Their sportsmanship this week has been remarkable.
To all our members who opened up their homes to house the PSA players
and to Clare Bradshaw who excellently organized the housing of all the
players.
To all the social media that put up my reports and Jean's amazing photos so quickly and brilliantly every day.
To Will Bunn, our adult squash chair for all his support throughout the Weymuller and this new squash year.
To Mary Lou Bunn and Eliza Alsop for co-chairing of the Weymuller for
the first time this year. They did a tremendous job and ran a great
Weymuller@Lunch and an amazing Weymuller@Dinner, which was our new
event this year and a roaring success.
To Paulina Rojek, our media manager, for taking care of the Weymuller facebook, instagram and tweeting.
To Rita Lascaro for her expert help with our tournament materials.
To Jean Ervasti who is our amazing Weymuller photographer. Jean takes
such wonderful photos and we appreciate her taking the time to do this
for us (and the late nights she had to entail to do so!) and providing
the rest of the world with wonderful mementos of the action here this
week.
To Mike Riley, Aaron Ford and Wayne Smith for all their refereeing
throughout the week. We really appreciate all your time and efforts
with our event.
To Alberto, our tournament DJ, who is did all our music at the
Weymuller, by the courts. He did a wonderful job and it was so much fun
and adds such a great vibe to the tournament.
To Tommy Berden for coming over to spend the last 3 days here in Brooklyn to get the Weymuller experience.
Then last but certainly not least, Cristian, Tiberius, Danny, Jayson,
Flor, Carson, Frank, Zhanna, Christy and the list goes on and on. Our
Heights Casino staff is an amazing team, who are all dedicated people,
who all pull together and make every event we run here a success.
Thanks SO much.
Thanks again and we hope you all enjoyed the 2016 Carol Weymuller Open
as much as we did and we look forward to running it again next year.
Congratulations again to Nour El Sherbini and good luck to all the PSA players for their next tournaments and beyond!
