R3: Nouran 3-1 Amina

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[2] Nouran Gohar (EGY) 3-1 Amina Orfi (EGY)  11-8, 11-3, 9-11, 11-5 (57m)

The Baby Destroyer Amina Orfi was taking on her Miror-In-Squash, The Terminator Nouran Gohar!

Amina’s got the game Nouran had 10 years ago, before Nouran added leaves and leaves to her game, enriching with his front game attacks and feathery shots. Amina has only a few of those weapons, which made the difference today I felt.

Excellent first game for the Baby Destroyer, taking Nouran to the throat, and leading 5-3 and 7/4. Feeling the danger, Nouran closed her game and in two hands, took the opener 11/8 in 14m.

With the momentum, she breezed through in the second, 11/3 but still some great rallies punchy style, not much variety in the shots, 11m.

The third was the Destroyer showing us what she is made off. Strong, intense, fiery, she was racquet to racquet with Nouran, 4/4, 5/5, and if Nouran took the lead, 8/6, there was no stopping the Destroyer, 5 points in a row, intense and flamboyant, 11/8, 16m game!

9 winners for Amina, and 6 for Nouran.

Nouran was not going to waste any more time on there tonight: remembering what she’s been working on with Rod recently, she varied the pace, showing her opponent the four corners, and as Amina was starting to slow down a fraction, took the reins of the game, 4/1, 7/2, 9/4, 11/5.

Prepare to have many, many MANY more battles between those two in the near future…

Nouran

“It’s so different. It’s the most enjoyable part of your career, being the underdog, and everybody talking about you and how dangerous you are. You can feel it in the eyes of your opponent. Literally, you could lose 0-3, and there’s no trouble; you just gain experience. I think, having been in Amina’s shoes, I know how she feels and how dangerous she can be, and that’s why I prepared well.

“On the other side, I remember Raneem El Welily giving me tonnes of lessons sometimes. Being so excited can sometimes backfire and I tried to make the excitement fire back on her in the second game which worked pretty well. In the third game, even though I’m a bit experienced I still lost concentration, but I’m glad I could end it with a good win in the fourth game.

“In Egypt, there are a lot of rivalries and very good players coming up so sometimes in those first few encounters if you make it tough, it doesn’t matter about the score, it’s more about the game and make them feel it’s very tough to win a point against you so when they come back it’s in their mind.”

“On returning to World No.2, she said:
“I always say whether it’s 2, 3 or 10, it’s always good to see yourself rising in the rankings but for me No.1 is the number. I don’t really care [about the others]. I think it’s more about winning titles now, thankfully I’ve been to World No.1 on multiple occasions. Obviously I would do anything to come back to World No.1 but that box is already ticked on that objective and there are other goals in my mind.

“The most important thing is to be healthy and to win as much as I can.”