Tuominen & Gawad In Repeat Finnish Final by Howard Harding
11 February 2013
- Top seeds Olli Tuominen and Karim Abdel Gawad will meet in the final
of the Savcor Finnish Open in a repeat of the 2012 climax of the
long-established PSA World Tour Challenger 15 squash event at Shopping
Center Stella in Mikkeli, Finland.
Home hero Tuominen, the top seed from Helsinki bidding for his fifth
title, dropped the first game against surprise semi-finalist Rasmus
Nielsen, a qualifier from Denmark.
"In the second game, Tuominen got his game under control and he took
the three following games quite comfortably," reported event spokesman
Poku Salo.
The 7-11, 11-6, 11-2, 11-4 victory in 43 minutes takes the 33-year-old defending champion into his 19th PSA Tour final.
Gawad, the 21-year-old second seed from Egypt, made his way to the
final with a straightforward straight games victory over teenage
compatriot Karim Ali Fathi 11-7, 11-3, 11-5 in 30 minutes.
World No24 Gawad - now ranked just a single place behind Tuominen - is celebrating the 11th Tour final of his career.
RESULTS: PSA Challenger 15 Savcor Finnish Open, Mikkeli, Finland
Semi-finals:
[1] Olli Tuominen (FIN) bt [Q] Rasmus Nielsen (DEN) 7-11, 11-6, 11-2, 11-4 (43m)
[2] Karim Abdel Gawad (EGY) bt [3] Karim Ali Fathi (EGY) 11-7, 11-3, 11-5 (30m)