‘CLEOPATRAS’ TOO STRONG
Malaysian girls settle for silver after losing to Egypt
EGYPT forced Malaysia into settling for silver at the Women’s World Junior Team Squash Championship yesterday while Nicol David had to be satisfied with a bronze medal at the World Games.
The national juniors, however, can be immensely proud of their achievement despite a 2-0 defeat to an Egyptian side featuring both the individual champion and runner-up in Tauranga, New Zealand.
Hania El Hammamy gave Egypt the lead by beating S. Sivasangari 11-8, 11-8, 6-11, 119 before new world junior champion Rowan Reda Araby followed up with an 114, 11-4, 9-11, 11-7 win over Andrea Lee.
In both instances, Hania and Rowan repeated their quarter-final wins over Sivasangari and Andrea in the individual tournament last week.
“I thought they played well, tough matches for them,” said national junior coach Andrew Cross of Malaysia’s third final appearances after runner-up finishes in 2001 and 2007.
“Hania and Rowan played well. As a whole I’m proud of the girls. They worked so hard for this over the years. Covered lots of miles and sacrificed a lot to be here.”
The girls’ squad also included Zoe Foo, who was not required to play the thirdstring in the final, and Aifa Azman, .
Meanwhile, Nicol earned a bronze medal at the World Games in Wroclaw, Poland on Friday after defeating Britain’s Fiona Moverley.
A three-time World Games gold medallist, Nicol recovered from her semi-final defeat to Hong Kong’s Joey Chan on Thursday to overcome Moverley 11-4, 118, 11-3 in the bronze medal match.
France’s Camille Serme won gold after beating Joey 11-4, 11-3, 11-4 in the final.
Nicol’s defeat to Joey was her first by an Asian player in 15 years and ended her quest for a fourth consecutive gold medal after victories in Duisburg (2005), Kaohsiung (2009) and Cali (2013).
“The chance to win a medal is still something to play for and I wanted to get on and give it everything I had,” said eight-time world champion Nicol. “I am really pleased to have won the medal.
“I will hopefully learn a lot from yesterday (Thursday). I want to take a lot of positives out of it. You see things you need to sharpen up and I need to step up my training and be sharper.”