Weymuller Semis Update: Nicol David Charges Past Raneem El Weleily, Will Play Camille Serme In FInal     
by Rob Dinerman

Dateline October 5th ---- In an extremely impressive display of speed, precision and focus, top seed and seven-time World Open champion Nicol David out-played third-seeded Raneem El Weleily 11-8, 7 and 4 this afternoon in the semifinal round of the 40th annual Carol Weymuller Open, held as always at the Heights Casino Club in Brooklyn Heights. David, who won this tourney in 2005, will now face surprise finalist Camille Serme, the unseeded Frenchwoman whose march to that stage has included wins over a trio of seeded players, namely Alison Waters, 2009 and 2010 Weymuller winner Jenny Duncalf and now second seed and defending Weymuller champion Laura Massaro, whom Serme dispatched in straight sets immediately following the David-El Weleily encounter.

   Against El Weleily, who won this event in 2011 and was runner-up to Massaro last year, David was able to break away in the closing stretch of each game, specifically with a 4-1 run from 7-all in the first, a similar spurt from 7-6 to 11-7 in the second and a six-point match-closing burst from 5-4 in the third. In each case, David's game-ending streaks began on an El Weleily tin, of which there were nearly 20 overall during the course of the three games. Even in the periods of brilliant squash that El Weleily had produced in sweeping to 3-0 pre-semis wins over first qualifier Line Hansen and then fifth seed Joelle King, the preternaturally talented 24-year-old Egyptian had committed a troubling number of errors, and in today's match she was playing an opponent who would make her pay for every one of them.

   The agile Malaysian was pouncing on every ball, and most of what she hit was crisp enough and sharp enough to keep El Weleily off balance and unable to assert her attacking thrusts in sufficient measure. David's retrieving level was higher than El Weleily's throughout this match, but more importantly her movement was more "offensive," i.e. more in a way that set up an aggressive response, than anything that El Weleily could muster. The only way that the latter could have wrested control would have been for her (a) to have coughed up fewer errors (a number of which appeared to have been "forced" by Nicol's unrelenting pressure, whether offensive pressure or defensive pressure or both), and (b) to have been much more willing to consistently grind out points, rather than bow to frustration and/or impatience and resort to something low-percentage, as happened too often on this occasion.

   The exchange that effectively sealed the outcome occurred in mid-third with David leading 6-4 after El Weleily, trailing 5-4, had caught the top of the tin on a shot that would have been a winner. On the ensuing point, the longest and most spectacular of the match, El Weleily commandeered much of the action, twice hitting her majestic "melting" cross-drop for near-winners, only to be thwarted by miraculous David retrievals, leading ultimately to a riveting cat-and-mouse front-court series of counterpunches that ended with David wristing a low cross-court to perfect length as the crowd roared its approval. El Weleily, visibly deflated by this reversal, then tinned the subsequent serve-return and could do little to contest the remainder as David, with the finish line now in clear view, ran out the last few points to punch her ticket to Sunday's final, where she hopes to return her name to the champions list after an eight-year hiatus.