[2] Nour El Sherbini (Egy) 3-0 [1] Nouran Gohar (Egy) 11-6, 11-8, 11-5 (43m)
[4] Mostafa Asal (Egy) 3-0 [2] Paul Coll (Nzl) 13-11, 11-8, 11-7 (76m)
Asal retains men’s title
Following the women’s final, Mostafa Asal and Paul Coll took to the all-glass court at the Mall of Arabia in the final match of the PSA World Tour season.
Both players started the match slightly edgy as they each found the tin on several occasions when presented with good chances to take the ball short. It didn’t take long for the quality to surface however as the hard-hitting game of Asal started to trouble Coll in all areas of the court. Asal took the opening game 13-11 after a mammoth 40 minutes of play.
A decision-filled second game went the way of the Egyptian also as the World No.4 doubled his lead winning 11-8. Asal was lethal around the middle of the court and leapt onto any volleying opportunities that came his way.
Coll led 6-3 in the third game with Asal looking to be feeling the effects of the opening two games as errors started to creep into the Egyptian’s game. In typical style, Asal bounced back. The defending Champion was not letting Coll back into the match that easily and lifted his body language to put the pressure back on Coll. Asal moved through to 10-7 and only needed one attempt to capture the CIB PSA World Tour Finals title for the second successive time.
“It’s unbelievable for me, having two trophies for the same tournament and defending my title is unreal for me,” said Asal.
“Thanks to this crowd, Karim Darwish for organising this amazing tournament, Lee Beachill and all of PSA for helping me. All credit to Paul, he’s an unbelievable player and one of the most honest players on tour, thanks to him for a great battle and I’m looking forward to more battles with him for sure.
“After the first game, I looked at the screen and it was 40 minutes and I thought I couldn’t continue like this and I managed to win the third and to win the match is something unbelievable for me and I’m looking forward to playing here again.
“Thanks to my parents, my friends, my coaches. It’s unreal support, I’m playing in front of my friends and I live two minutes from here so it’s hard to express my feelings.”
Result : [4] Mostafa Asal (EGY) bt [2] Paul Coll (NZL) 3-0: 13-11, 11-8, 11-7 (76m)
Sherbini claims the title in Cairo
Nour El Sherbini raced out to a 6-0 lead in the opening game to pile the pressure onto top seed Nouran Gohar early in the match. ‘The Warrior Princess’ continued to fire the ball in short and went through to take the opening game 11-6.
Gohar started to find her way into the match in the second game with her line and length drastically improving to force El Sherbini back in the court. Gohar found herself 7-5 up in the game but back came El Sherbini, taking six of the next seven points to take a crucial 2-0 lead.
There was no stopping the World No.2 in the third as she moved from strength to strength to twist and turn Gohar continually. El Sherbini took full advantage of all of her attacking opportunities and set herself up with 8 championship balls. Despite a mini-comeback from Gohar, El Sherbini closed out the match to lift her second World Tour Finals title.
“I’m really happy with my performance, I think this was my best performance of the whole season so I’m glad I’m ending on a win and I just wanted to be good in my last match and last tournament.
“I’ve been struggling the whole season but it’s a credit to all the other players who have been playing really well. I’ve been trying to push every match and I’m glad that I stopped in the middle of the season, it helped me a lot to regroup and I’m really happy with the last three tournaments I played and now I can rest and come back stronger.
“Nouran took the No.1 spot from me and has been winning all the Platinum events so that shows how on form she has been. It’s always challenging and tough, she didn’t lose a game all tournament so it was tough. I’m happy with the rivalry and the challenge we have and I’m looking forward to the challenge next season.”
Result : [2] Nour El Sherbini (EGY) bt [1] Nouran Gohar (EGY) 3-0: 11-6, 11-8, 11-5 (43m)
PREVIEWS :
[1] Nouran Gohar (Egy) v [2] Nour El Sherbini (Egy)
El Sherbini will be looking to capture this title for the second time in her career, following up on her win in 2018. Gohar too will be determined to finish the season on a high after losing out in the final of both the World Championships and El Gouna International prior to this event. ‘The Terminator’ still managed to capture four titles in 2022 so far but would love to add a second World Tour Finals to that list.
El Sherbini holds a healthy lead over Gohar in the head-to-head records at 15-6 in favour of the 26-year-old. The last win for El Sherbini came at the biggest stage, the World Championships final.
The pair have met three times on tour this season with Gohar leading 2-1 in matches, can ‘The Warrior Princess’ level things up in the final match of their seasons to take home the title?
[2] Paul Coll (Nzl) v [4] Mostafa Asal (Egy)
Coll became a 2x British Open Champion this year and also captured the Windy City Open in March on his way to becoming the World No.1 for the first time. This is the New Zealander’s first appearance in the final of this event compared to Asal who won the event last year to claim his first major crown. From there Asal has added the US Open and El Gouna International and looks on top form again this week.
Defending World Tour Finals Champion Mostafa Asal recently beat Coll in the El Gouna International final in an impressive three games. ‘The Raging Bull’ has been calm and collected all week, spelling danger for his opponents throughout the event.
The pair featured in the same group earlier in the week with Coll topping the group after beating Asal in the final match 2-0, although Asal was suspected to not be at 100% as he’d already qualified.
To set up this final, Coll overcame ‘The Beast’ Mohamed ElShorbagy in confident style, 2-0 and Asal produced a very similar performance to down World No.1 Ali Farag and reach back-to-back finals.
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