R3: Masterclass from Tesni 3-0 Nour

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Tesni Evans (Wal) 3-0 [5] Nour El Tayeb (Egy)  11-6, 11-9, 11-8 (31m)

Love gives you wings. That’s my story and I’ll stick to it. Engaged to Ben, the NZ Engineer, also coaching her this week – she had Joelle King and Tinne Gilis in attendance as plan B & C – Tesni was flying today.

It was like the court belonged to her. She owned the court today. She made 4 errors the whole match, forced a few from a lost at sea Nour, got a few strokes as well in her favour, as Nour was struggling to find her usual accuracy.

The Egypt found a new tactic after a slow start. She hit perfect width and length, with lots of weight in the ball, but nothing did. Tesni had 20 answers for Nour’s each question. Finding nicks from all over the court, playing relaxed, she completely nullified Nour’s attacks. I guess Manchester’s victory and adrenalin loss there was a key.

Second is crucial really. Not a single point between them until 9/9, but with a nick on a return of serve an a quick stroke, the Welsh is leading 2-0 after 20m.

Nour tried to stay in touch with the score in the 3rd, but as you may imagine, even if Tes started to show signs of tiredness at the end of the game, she was still on Cloud 9. With 3 points cushions, 6/3, 9/6, she was able to contain Nour’s last push to 8/9, and it’s 11/8 in 10m…

Tesni : I’m really happy with that. I thought I played really well and my game plan that I had before the match worked really well today. Of course you have to execute it, and I thought I played really well today.

We didn’t play for a long time, I always enjoy playing her, I think her style suits me a little bit.

The respect I have for Nour is huge. Not just what she’s achieved on court and what she continues to do, but being on Tour with a baby is incredible and coming back from that as a woman is incredible. It’s fantastic to see and I tried to show her that respect by giving her a good go today and to win in three against a player of Tayeb’s calibre is a huge confidence boost.

It’s been a long season. I thought she might be a little tired arriving here, she had a tough week in Manchester. I just wanted to focus on myself. My coach told me just go on there, relax.

I was practicing since I arrived here, and I was thinking I was playing rather well, I guess also it’s the last event/match of the season, and I really wanted to give everything and show what I could do, and play real positive squash. Not just sit off that one.

I said all the respect I have for her but I wanted to put that out of my mind, and just play my squash.

It doesn’t get any easier. If I want to make my way up the rankings, these are the players I need to learn off and see what they’re doing and build up my game. I’m looking forward to being on the glass court – I’ve never been on it at El Gouna. That’ll be a first for me and I’m really looking forward to it.

Who am I playing next? I really don’t know. I didn’t look.