Serme Sees Off Waters in Five to Clinch Cleveland Classic Title by Sean Reuthe
photo Andrea Dawson Photography
February 21, 2016
- French World No.2 Camille Serme continued her unbeaten start to 2017
after she mounted a superb comeback from two games down to retain her
Cleveland Classic title at the expense of England’s former World No.3
Alison Waters in Pepper Pike.
Serme, the 27-year-old from Créteil, has been in scintillating form
over the past few months, with victories at the Delaware Investments
U.S. Open and J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions cementing her status
as the form player on the Women’s Tour.
Serme surged through to the final without dropping a solitary game,
with Egyptian qualifier Nadine Shahin, number eight seed Tesni Evans
and World No.8 Sarah-Jane Perry all falling by the wayside as the
rampant Frenchwoman went on to set up a repeat of the 2016 final with
Waters, who was the only player to have beaten Serme in the latter’s 16
previous matches coming into the final.
Waters looked to be set to get the better of her opponent once more
after going two games ahead courtesy of some disciplined length
hitting, putting the current World No.10 on the cusp of a first PSA
World Tour title since the 2014 Carol Weymuller Open.
But Serme responded in the third by attacking at the front of the court
on the backhand side and, after winning it by an 11-7 margin, she
ground out a victory in the fourth to level the scores and set up a
dramatic fifth-game showdown.
With the match edging towards its conclusion, both players played an
attritional brand of squash with neither competitor giving many loose
shots away as they sought to gain the upper hand. But it was Serme who
changed up her game intelligently, incorporating the lob to great
effect as she closed out a 10-12, 9-11, 11-7, 11-8, 11-7 victory to
lift her third PSA World Tour title in her last four tournaments.
Serme and Waters will be in action at the upcoming Windy City Open
presented by Guggenheim Partners and EquiTrust Life Insurance Company,
which will be shown live on SQUASHTV and Eurosport Player between
February 23 - March 1.
