Manchester Open SFs: Defending Champion Tayeb Powers Past Elaraby 

Two-time champion Nour El Tayeb defeated No.3 seed and close friend Rowan Elaraby in straight games to progress to the Manchester Open final. 

Top seed Tayeb, who won the 2020 and 2023 editions of the event, was in exquisite form throughout the encounter, using her variety and hold to great effect at the PSA World Tour Silver event. 

Tayeb was fast out of the blocks, taking a 6-3 lead, and never let Elaraby back into the match, forcing Elaraby deep into the corners and putting away any loose cross court shots with distain. 

After an even first game went Tayeb’s way, errors began to flow from the racket of Elaraby, with her opponent cruising into a 6-1 lead and subsequently doubling her lead in the match.

From there, the World No.6 moved from strength to strength, displaying her wide variety of attacking weapons, in particular some eye-catching cross-court nicks, and efficiently closing out the victory after just 26 minutes of action.

After the match, Tayeb said: “I wasn’t expecting that. You know when I was planning for the match, and how to play, every point I was thinking, ‘is it going to change, is something going to happen’. As I told you yesterday, we are very close friends, so sometimes I knew what she was thinking. As you can see from the head-to-head, it is very close between us, because I don’t like her style of play, but luckily today everything went according to plan.

“I actually looked at her [between games] to try and see what she was thinking. It’s not everyday you play a friend, and we’ve only been very close friends over the last couple of years, and we haven’t really played since then.

“But I think it kept my head in the squash more – usually my head wanders, but because I was so focussed with me and her, I stayed focussed which was good.”

Result:

[1] Nour El Tayeb (EGY) bt [3] Rowan Elaraby (EGY) 3-0: 11-7, 11-1, 11-1 (26m)