New Zealand Open 2022 – Finals: Preview, Stats & How To Watch Live

12 November 2022

It’s finals day in both the Barfoot & Thompson and the Robertson Lodges New Zealand Open draws as the last players standing in the Silver events make their final push for the title.

Top seeds and home favourites Joelle King and Paul Coll have reached the final, where they will take on Welsh No.6 seed Tesni Evans and England’s No.2 seed Mohamed ElShorbagy, respectively.

Play begins from 18:00 (GMT+13) and you can watch all four matches live on SQUASHTV. You can also keep up to date with the live scores here.

We will also have updates and exclusive behind-the-scenes content across our social media channels on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

New Zealand Open 2022: finals – Order of play

Joelle King v Tesni Evans

In the first final, New Zealand’s World No.5 Joelle King and Wales’ World No.14 Tesni Evans face off for the eighth time in their careers.

Tournament top seed King enjoys a slender 4-3 record against Evans, though the Welshwoman came out on top in their most recent clash, with Evans beating King 2-1 in second round of the 2019 CIB PSA World Tour Finals.

Earlier that same season, the two met in the final of the Manchester Open, with King winning 3-0 in 33 minutes. That was the last time Evans reached the final of a World Tour event and the 30-year-old will no doubt be desperate for revenge today.

King has looked in dominant form in Tauranga, with the 34-year-old yet to drop a game after 3-0 wins over Jessica Turnbull, Sabrina Sobhy and Tinne Gilis.

No.6 seed Evans, meanwhile, has upset the odds as she builds on her impressive form at the Grasshopper Cup. The 30-year-old cruised past Kiwi wildcard Kaitlyn Watts in the second round before overcoming No.2 seed Sarah-Jane Perry 3-1 in the quarter-final and then fighting back from a game down to beat No.4 seed Nele Gilis by the same scoreline in the semi-final.

Our friends at SquashLevels make top seed King the favourite, with the Kiwi given a 70 percent chance of victory. Evans, though, is expected to make the World No.5 fight for every point, with 3-2 the predicted result.

Will another seed tumble to Evans? Or can King delight the home crowd?

Paul Coll v Mohamed ElShorbagy

In the men’s final, two former World No.1s clash in a final for the second time in the space of a week.

World No.2 Coll, who like King will no doubt be backed to the rafters by a vocal home crowd, goes into the match keen to avenge his defeat to ElShorbagy in the final of the Nations Cup last week.

On the PSA World Tour, ElShorbagy holds an 11-5 record over Coll. Both players have enjoyed spells of dominance over each other: ElShorbagy won nine of their first ten match on the tour, only for Coll to win four of the next five.

With ElShorbagy edging the last encounter on the tour, a 90-minute epic that ended 3-2, the World No.4 will be hoping to inflict more hurt on the Kiwi today.

A win for ElShorbagy today would see ‘the Beast’ record his 500th victory on the tour.

Both players go into today’s final hoping to go through the entire tournament without dropping a game. ElShorbagy, who will go joint-fifth on the list of all-time men’s PSA final appearances today with 75 finals to his name, got the better of Charlie Lee, Leandro Romiglio and Victor Crouin to reach today’s final.

Coll, meanwhile, got past Timothy Brownell, Adrian Waller and Abdulla Al Tamimi en route to the final.