Defending Champion Gohar Battles Past El Tayeb to Reach Black Ball Open Final 

Two-time champion Nouran Gohar progressed to the Black Ball Squash Open 2024 final after defeating Egyptian compatriot Nour El Tayeb in four games. 

Gohar had to display all of her battling qualities in the 55-minute encounter, saving two game balls in the first, and a further three in the second game on her way to victory. 

World No.3 Gohar, who boasted a 14-5 head-to-head record coming into the match, won four successive points at the end of the first game to take it in a tie-break, delivering a knock-out backhand drive to move a game up. 

The second game again was a well-fought affair, with El Tayeb showing some incredible athleticism around all four corners of the court, with Gohar continuing to mix up ferocious straight hitting with soft hands into the front. And despite World No.5 El Tayeb taking five straight points in the mid-phase of the game to move 10-8 up, Gohar stood strong again to take another tight tie-break. 

Despite the frustrating nature of the first two games, El Tayeb continued to throw everything in her armoury at Gohar, with the latter giving away a number of strokes to see Tayeb move five game balls up. At the first time of asking, El Tayeb reduced the deficit to one game with a superb backhand kill. 

Gohar stuck to her game plan in the fourth, continuing to hit some superb straight lines to push El Tayeb deep before using her boast to force her opponent into the front two corners. The 26-year-old took an early lead and never let her opponent back in, taking the fourth 11-6 to progress to the final. 

After the match, Gohar said: “Nour [El Tayeb] came out firing, she played like she had nothing to lose today and she can be very dangerous when she feels that way.

“On my side, I was feeling very good out there, but she made it very difficult for me out there, so all credit to her. It’s such a pleasure to be competing against her, but I wish we play less than that!”

“Logically it made sense to ask for the new ball, and for me mentally I was thinking it was a fresh start. I just wanted to think of it as 0-0 and I think that was the best game that I played.

“Me and Nour always have great battles, obviously when she plays the ball in the middle, she is such a good retriever, so I was just trying to wait a bit and hit my ball, and then go to the ‘T’. Sometimes because it is too fast, they [the referees] think we are trying to do something when we are actually not.”

Result:

[1] Nouran Gohar (EGY) bt [3] Nour El Tayeb (EGY) 3-1: 12-10, 13-11, 6-11, 11-6 (55m)