Florida Open Semi-Finals: The Stats & How to Watch Live

It’s semi-finals day at the SmartCentres Kinetic Florida Open, with four matches in store at the Kinetic Indoor Racquet Club Florida. Play begins at 13:00 (GMT-5) and all of the action will be live on SQUASHTV.

Here’s the Order of Play for tonight

(All times are local GMT-5)

Diego Elias v Mazen Hesham

We kick off with a men’s match as Peruvian No.1 seed Diego Elias takes on Egypt’s No.4 seed Mazen Hesham for the 16th time on the PSA World Tour.

Elias – who has gone 11 months without winning a PSA title – has got the better of Hesham 12 times, with the most recent of Hesham’s three wins coming five years ago at the Channel VAS Championships at St. George’s Hill.

Since then, Elias has nine unanswered wins over the Egyptian, with only one of those matches seeing Hesham take him all the way to five games.

But Hesham was impressive in a dominant quarter-final victory over Welshman Joel Makin, requiring just 42 minutes to dispatch one of the most tenacious players on the PSA Tour.

That will stand him in good stead going into today’s clash with Elias, who has beaten England’s Nick Wall and former World Champion Tarek Momen to reach the last four.

Nour El Sherbini v Olivia Weaver

World No.1 Nour El Sherbini has been almost flawless during the 2023-24 season so far, winning 23 of her 25 matches and capturing three titles on the way.

The 28-year-old is one step away from her fifth final of the campaign and USA’s Olivia Weaver stands between her and a place in the title decider.

The head-to-head record between the pair doesn’t make great reading for the American, who has suffered a defeat on all four occasions the pair have done battle.

However, their most recent meeting – at the U.S. Open in October of last year – saw Weaver come closest to causing an upset as she won her first game against the reigning World Champion before eventually going down in four.

Both players will be fresh going into today’s match after enjoying 3-0 victories in their second round and quarter-final bouts and Weaver will look to draw on the American support as she hopes to get one over on the world’s leading female player.

Mohamed ElShorbagy v Mostafa Asal

With an average match time of 76 minutes, Mohamed ElShorbagy and Mostafa Asal have given squash fans some fantastic matches over the past few years.

Their last meeting stands out in particular, with Asal eventually prevailing after 110 minutes of action in the El Gouna International semis.

ElShorbagy – who had to pause that match at the start of the fifth game to borrow socks from Asal after his own had filled up with sweat – has beaten Asal twice before, with his most recent win coming at the 2022 QTerminals Qatar Classic.

Since then, Asal has won two on the bounce, but it’s hard to call a winner tonight, with ElShorbagy recently leapfrogging Asal in the rankings to sit at No.4.

After turning 33 and marking his 700th match on the PSA Tour with a win yesterday, ElShorbagy will be hoping to crown his birthday celebrations by picking up the title tomorrow.

Hania El Hammamy v Nouran Gohar

World No.2 Nouran Gohar and World No.3 Hania El Hammamy meet for the first time this season today in the latest chapter of an enthralling rivalry which has already seen them contest eight PSA title deciders.

Whilst no honours are on the line tonight, matches between Gohar and El Hammamy are played at an intensity rarely seen elsewhere on the PSA Tour – their last match, in the CIB PSA World Tour Finals title decider, totalled 130 minutes, making it the longest women’s match of all time.

In fact, three of their last four matches have all gone over the 100-minute mark, with the only one that didn’t being played over a best-of-three games format.

Gohar has generally had the measure of her fellow Egyptian – winning 13 matches to El Hammamy’s six – but has only just made her return from a four-month injury layoff this week.

After 3-0 wins over Zeina Mickawy and Farida Mohamed, ‘The Terminator’ hasn’t shown signs of any rust, but El Hammamy will prove to be a different test tonight and squash fans should look forward to a fast-paced, high-octane clash in Florida.

Tune in to SQUASHTV today to watch all the action.