South Western Open: Sobhy battles past Abbas to reach Houston final

World No.5 Amanda Sobhy progressed to the South Western Open final after seeing off the threat of unseeded Egyptian Nada Abbas in five games at the Houston Squash Club. 

World No.22 Abbas, who had already impressively knocked out the American seeds Olivia Clyne and Olivia Fiechter on her way to the semi-finals, found her feet quickly at the beginning of the match, finding a couple of nicks and moving Sobhy around the court well to take a 5-4 lead. 

However, a couple of unforced errors from the racket of the Egyptian, paired with a consistent, relentless length of Sobhy, saw the home favourite move ahead and take a tight opening game 11-9. 

Abbas came flying out of the blocks in the second, using her boast effectively and taking on any opportunities to attack at the front of the court. The Egyptian’s aggression forced Sobhy into some uncharacteristic errors, with Abbas quickly staring at seven game balls to bring the match level. 

Although Sobhy offered up some resistance with a trio of well-constructed points, the Egyptian made no mistake on the fourth attempt and took the second game 11-6. 

The third game saw Sobhy regain her accuracy and notably step up the physicality of the match. Abbas threw some punches of her own, including a deft overhead backhand winner at 5-2 down, but it wasn’t enough to stop the American marching through the third game without too many hiccups, taking it 11-5.

Both players traded points at the beginning of the fourth, but it was Abbas who found a second wind and started to tilt the momentum back in her favour. The Egyptian found back-to-back nicks at 8-6 up to set up three game balls, and at the fourth time of asking, managed to level up the match. 

Abbas was entering new territory at the beginning of the fifth, having never won more than one game against her American opponent in their four previous head-to-heads, and it started to look ever-more-likely that Sobhy would maintain this 100% winning record. 

Sobhy continued to dominate the ’T’ and work Abbas across all four corners of the court, accelerating into a 9-3 lead and eventually bringing up a match ball after 57 minutes of action. The American didn’t need asking twice, taking the fifth game 11-3 and moving through to the South Western Open final.

After the match, Sobhy said: ” It feels good. Nada just took out two of my teammates in the last two days, so on behalf of Team USA, I had to get the win.

“In all credit to her, it’s great to see her back. She’s clearly playing way above her ranking level, and I know she is going to climb up in the rankings, so I’m sure we will play again soon.

“It never quite felt free-flowing like the last two rounds, so I switched rackets. My grip was really sweaty anyway. It was a gamble, but it worked, and I’m really happy that the fifth game was the best game that I played.

“Regardless of who wins [between Nour El Tayeb and Salma Hany] I have played both of them so many times, it is going to be a great match tomorrow so I hope you all come out and watch.”

Result:

[2] Amanda Sobhy (USA) bt Nada Abbas (EGY) 3-2: 11-9, 6-11, 11-5, 9-11, 11-3 (58m)