R2: Salma, Nele, Olivia, Tinne
13.30 Matches :
[9/16] Salma Hany (Egy) 3-1 Jasmine Hutton (Eng) 9-11, 11-8, 11-4, 11-3 (45m)
[3] Nele Gilis (Bel) 3-0 Tesni Murphy (Wal) 12-10, 11-7, 11-2 (41m)
[5] Olivia Weaver (Usa) 3-0 Katie Malliff (Eng) 11-9, 11-5, 11-4 (32m)
[7] Tinne Gilis (Bel) 3-1 Fayrouz Aboelkheir (Egy) 11-9, 8-11, 11-7, 11-8 (48m)
Olivia : I really enjoyed our match. It took me the first game to find my length and my targets, adjust to the court, it’s much colder than Black Ball.
I really enjoyed playing Katie today. I had never played her before. I love the way she plays, she’s got a great hold, she is also so young. I feel it used to be me. She is a really talented player and I’m sure she’s got a long successful career in front of her.
Fortunately, I have in January and February I had a very long stretch of events, like 7 events in like 10 weeks. So going from Black Ball to here is not as overwhelming as it was in the past, jumping from one event ot the next with such a little time in between. My body has handled it well. I’m feeling good and I think I recovered well.
During my summer training with Rod, I was doing 3 sessions a day, lots of track sessions and pressure session, all that made my fitness level the best it’s ever been! I’ve been working very hard at it, allowing me to express myself better on court because I back myself in my ability to cover all the four corners. And I can stay out there as long as I need to.
It’s essential if you want to challenge those top three girls. And everyone on court is getting fitter and fitter.
So, feeling good and really excited to still be in and take on the next battle.
Tinne v Fayrouz : A feisty match. So many calls, both girls getting penalised, warned, it was all happening. The Belgium was able to stay on track with her game plan, focused, even if Fayrouz really threatened to take the match to a decider. Tinne will be very happy with that result I feel.
Tinne : “I’m very happy to win this one. I know Fayrouz can be very hard and feisty on court so I was expecting a big battle. It wasn’t the most enjoyable squash and I wasn’t too accurate so there was a lot of contact every now and then. It was hard to focus, especially in that fourth game where I had a big lead but let her back into the game and it got a bit edgy, so I’m very happy to close it out in four.
“Playing in Egypt brings out the fire in every Egyptian, so I knew it would be harder to play her today. I’m just relieved and I want to focus on the next one.
“I always have good battles with Satomi [Watanabe, Gilis’ next opponent]. It’s always very clean. She’s very nice on and off court and very talented. I’m expecting a very clean and hard battle.”
