R1 MATCH OF THE DAY! Malak takes a dramatic win against Georgia
Malak Khafagy (EGY) 3-2 Georgia Adderley (SCO) 5-11, 11-9, 1-11, 11-5, 14-12 (59m)
This match had it all. Drama, tears, decisions that were not easy to take, nor to get, the parents, the intensity, bags missing, planes, cars and a normal day in the life of a Squash player really! NOT….
Basically, the last match on – it had be moved to 6.15pm instead of the start of the day as the poor Egyptian was part of the 4-player team just landed at 1am in Cairo – along with Fayrouz, playing Nour El Sherbini, no less.
No bag though for Malak so, no attire, no racquet, absolutely nothing. She called her sister Nour to the rescue, herself finishing the World Qualis in South Africa, and flying in at 6am!!!! You cannot invent that.
Add to that a penalty game at 1 game all, as Nour’s knee had bled at the start of the match, the physio didn’t have the correct plasta to make it stopped, and Nour – unaware she could have refused to go back on court until the bleeding was correctly stopped – was penalised with the loss of the third game.
“She cried, the mum cried, everybody was upset” noticed a spectator. It was all happening. How did Georgia not lose her cool, and focus, we’ll never know!
The Scottish lady was not too happy with the movement of her opponent, complaining that “she can’t have that movement”, but the ref didn’t see anything wrong, and went to actually warn Georgia for descent.
So we are now 2/1 up for the Scott, and a sublime response from the Egyptian, leading 6/2, scoring 6 points from 0/2, taking the game 11/5 in 8m. At that point, I realised that Malak – who played sublime squash last year on those same courts, was not going to lose that match. Not today. Not in Egypt.
With the adrenalin flowing and displaying a perfect body language. She impressed the heck out of me today I have to admit.
The only time I was her panicking was she let go of 3 match balls, from 10/7. At 10/10, I saw the despair in her eyes. But that was short-lived, as Georgia went too short too soon for the first time of the match, timing the ball in three shots at match ball 11/10, 11/11!
Another chance for the Scot, 12/11, but a superbly executed backhand crosscourt lob that died in the right left corner, and we were back at 12/12.
And with a stroke and a winner, the Egyptian took the game and match, on her 4th attempt, 14m last game, 14/12. Mum was crying, dad was crying, Nour the sister was laughing, Malak didn’t know if she should cry or laugh.
I realised I had forgotten to breathe…
Malak : I just arrived from Pakistan at 1 am [from the U23 World Champs] at Cairo Airport.
I kept waiting for my bag for an hour and a half, and it never arrived. So I had to go to the lost luggage office, and make the case about my bag, it was 3am by the time we finished.
I was on the road about 4am, and we arrived in Gouna around 9 or 10. So went to breakfast, and told myself I had to sleep 3h. So fell asleep at 12, and woke up at 3pm. Had a quick sandwich, and called my sister who was in South Africa for the World Qualifiers.
I obviously didn’t have any clothes, racquets, anything. So I asked her if she had any clothes I could borrow? We share the same gears. So, she landed from South Africa at 6am, and I booked her flight to join me in Gouna at 8am.
The clothes you see me wearing are hers. I don’t have anything, not a skirt, socks anything, no shoes! I borrowed Bernat [Jaume] racquet.
Can you believe I haven’t won a single match in four months??? I just went through the toughest 4 months of my life.
I’ve been struggling a lot with my self-talk and how I perceive myself. I’ve been going through a lot, I’m in College in the States now, there were a lot of ups and downs, with a lot more of downs. So today, I told myself to try something different, more self conscious, be a little easier on yourself, I’ve been so hard on myself, trying to do everything right but nothing was working.
So I thought that I should let everything go and just take a point at the time, and just breathe.
The ref gave me a game penalty, because of my knee bleeding again, the third game. We were 1/1, and my knee started bleeding again, and he went, ok, 2/1 down!
“What do you mean, I didn’t know that” I told him. That was a complete shock for me. It never happened to me, so I didn’t know to react to the situation. But at the end of the day, I told myself, nothing is working, so just try to make this work. You’ve been pushing a lot, you travelled all the way here, so I was really easy on myself, being kind to myself. And it really worked.
I haven’t checked if I play tomorrow. Oh, my sister tells me I’m playing tomorrow at 6, so I’ll have a bit of time to sleep then….
