El Sherbini Routines King to Capture $50K Carol Weymuller Open Linda Elriani reports
photos Jean Ervasti
October 5, 2015
- Today was the final day of our 2015 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 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 finalists Joelle King from New Zealand, who was former
world # 4, before her injury, and Nour El Sherbini from Egypt who is
world #7, looked bouncy and eager to go! Both players knowing this was
their last huge effort after a very successful and tiring week at the
Weymuller. They will both have a couple of days off before the US Open
starts in Philadelphia later this week. Either way they will both being
going onto the next tournament full of confidence and high spirits.
In the head to head Nour is 3-1 up but both players have had plenty of
experience in finals, especially Joelle. This is Joelle’s 17th Tour
final, with 8 titles under her belt and its Nour’s 9th tour final with
4 titles to her name.
This match was going to be particularly interesting as both players,
whilst very much on-form, play very different styles. Joelle 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!!!!
The match started out with both players playing long, patient rallies
and trying to find their own rhythm. The score stayed even through to
4-4 but then Nour, who had been uncharacteristically patient so far,
started to slot in her wonderful winning shots as soon as Joelle hit a
slightly lose or short length. Nour went storming through, putting a
very eager Joelle under so much pressure that she clipped the tin on a
couple of openings. Nour’s movement was also particularly fast and
fluid today and even when Joelle looked to have played a winner, Nour
was onto it and re-applying pressure again. The game finished in Nour’s
favor with an amazing forehand volley drop winner from a high length
that would usually be good enough to get someone out of trouble! Nour
won the game 11/5.
Could Joelle come out in the second and find her usual faster paced
deep lengths and start to control the middle of the court again or
would Nour continue her near perfect game plan?
The second game started out much the same, with lots of patient long
rallies and Joelle was trying so hard to really take some control. The
points stayed even until 4-4 again and then Nour started surging
forward through the points, playing better and better squash! Nour
seemed to be consciously keeping the pace slower and this forced Joelle
to also hit with less pace and purpose and it was definitely working in
Nour’s favor. With some errors from Joelle and an array of winners from
Nour after patient thought out rallies, Nour got herself up to 11/5
game ball again. With one perfect backhand drop from Joelle she
squeezed out one more point but then a perfect forehand drop in the
nick from Nour took her to a 2-0 lead winning the second 11/6.
In the third game Nour was basically on fire! She played a perfect game
of squash. She was so poised, calm, focused and error free! Whilst
Joelle kept trying her best, she looked like she had run out of ideas
of how to stop this barrage of amazing squash. The more Joelle tried,
harder it became and Nour took advantage of every single tiny
opportunity! Nour stormed through to take the third 11/3 and also the
much deserved title of 2015 Carol Weymuller Open champion
An absolutely thrilled Nour said “I was really focused and really
wanted to win. I was trying to be patient and calm and just wait for
the right opportunity and that made the difference. Thank you to my
brother for being here, I’ve finally won a tournament and he was here!
Also to my parents for staying up and watching me at 2am (on the
streaming) and my squash and fitness coach and Shabana the National
coach. The all called me today and gave me the plan and it worked!
Thanks to my sponsors EZZ Steel, Tecnifibre and ‘Brqthru’. Thanks for a
great tournament and to the Mendez family for hosting me. See you again
next year!”
A disappointed looking Joelle said after her final “I guess I feel
mixed emotions right now with getting so close to the finish line and
getting pipped at the post. All credit to Nour, she played impeccable
squash and capitalized on every opportunity and didn’t let me play my
way into the game. I guess I’m just real really happy to be back
competing again and looking forward to coming back next year –
hopefully not as a wildcard!!!”
Nour El Sherbini beat Joelle King 11/5, 11/6, 11/3
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 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 to 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. Their sportsmanship this week has been remarkable.
To all our members who opened up their homes to house the players and
to Eliza Alsop who excellently organized all housing of the players.
To all the social media that put up my reports and Jean’s 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 Ashley Bernhard and Judy Scofield Miller for co-chairing of the
Weymuller so wonderfully again this year. They did a tremendous job as
always and ran a really fun-packed Weymuller@Lunch last week.
To Paulina Rojek, for taking care of the Weymuller facebook, instagram and tweeting.
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 Annelize, our tournament DJ and fantastic pro, who is did all our
music at the Weymuller, by the courts and also at our function on
Saturday night. It was so much fun and adds such a great vibe to the
tournament.
Then last but certainly not least, Cristian, Tiberius, Jayson, T,
Carson, Frank and ALL our Heights Casino staff. We have an amazing team
of dedicated people here at The Heights Casino, 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 2015 Carol Weymuller Open
as much as we did and we look forward to running it again next year.
Congratulations again to Nour and good luck to all the PSA players for the next week at the US Open and beyond!
