Tournaments

BritOpen Update: Au Arrows Past Campion

22 March 2016

#PSAWorldTour

Hong Kong No.1 Annie Au booked her place in the second round of the prestigious Allam British Open for the fifth successive year after a commanding straight games victory over England’s Sarah Campion in the PSA World Series tournament.

The opening game was a quick affair with shot, sharp rallies being par for the course as both players found joy at the front of the court. Campion, playing in her first PSA World Tour event in over a year due to the birth of her first child, fought hard but was powerless to stop Au from opening up a one-game lead after the World No.11 pulled away mid-game.

Au displayed some fantastic touches in the second as she stormed into an 8-3 lead and she saw off some late resistance from her opponent to go two games up. After a closely contested start to the third game, Au played with intelligent shot selection to move Campion off the ‘T’ and found her best form towards the end of the match to wrap up an 11-5, 11-6, 11-5 victory to ensure that she will face World Junior Champion Nouran Gohar for a place in the quarter-final.

“I’m happy to win 3-0 because Sarah is a really good player,” said Au.

“She stopped for a while because she had a baby girl but she still put me under a lot of pressure so I had to stay focused throughout all three games. If you give her a chance she will really punish you so I’m happy today.”

Au is feeling confident heading into the next stage of the tournament and says that having a coach with her this year could propel her to greater things as she looks to reach the last eight of the British Open for the first time since 2012.

“I think this year is much better because we have a coach here which means I get a lot of good advice between games. Also, this year we have quite a lot of girls from Hong Kong who have gotten through to the second round so it gives me a lot of encouragement to push really hard because I think the standard now in Hong Kong is really getting high.”

Result: First Round: Women’s Allam British Open 2016
[9] Annie Au (HKG) bt [Q] Sarah Campion (ENG) 3-0: 11-5, 11-6, 11-5 (28m)

Watch live action from the Allam British Open on SQUASHTV*. It is also shown in Europe on Eurosport Player. Click here to find out more.