Contrasting wins for El Sherbini, El Tayeb
dubai — Defending champion and World No.1 Mohamed El Shorbagy of Egypt will square off against the in-form Simon Rosner of Germany, while unseeded Englishman Nick Matthew takes on Egypt’s Ali Farag in the men’s semifinals of the ATCO PSA Dubai World Series Finals at the Emirates Golf Club.
Meanwhile, in the women’s segment, top seed and last year’s runner-up Nour El Sherbini of Egypt meets sixth seeded Frenchwoman Camille Serme, while third seed Nour El Tayeb of Egypt goes up against countrywoman Raneem El Welily.
The 37-year-old Matthew, who put his retirement plans on hold after being called up for the tournament following Marwan El Shorbagy’s injury, made it three wins out of three after beating Mohamed El Shorbagy 11-6, 11-6 in just 16 minutes in their final Group A fixture.
Matthew had already beaten Egypt’s Tarek Momen and Colombia’s Miguel Angel Rodriguez in his first two matches.
Matthew and El Shorbagy were already through to the last four and the match lacked the intensity with the only point of interest being who would top the group.
The other Group A match between Momen and Rodriguez was a dead rubber as both were already out of contention for a semifinal spot.
Meanwhile, with a semifinal spot at stake, it was all to play for, for Egypt’s Nour El Tayeb and New Zealand’s Joelle King.
And it went the full distance with both holding match balls in the deciding third game before El Tayeb edged it 7-11, 11-7, 13-11 in 38 minutes.
Elsewhere, Nour El Sherbini continued her winning streak by defeating compatriot Nouran Gohar 11-5, 11-5 in just 14 minutes.
El Tayeb and King’s clash was a repeat of the Windy City Open final in February where El Tayeb fought back from match ball down to deny King a first World Series title.
King started well to race to a 7-2 lead in the first game but El Tayeb clawed back and came to within a point. But King raised her game to take the lead before wrapping up the game.
El Tayeb responded by taking the second game to push the match to the decider. And the Egyptian raced ahead to a 7-3 lead in the third and within sight of closing the match out with a match ball in hand.
But King recovered and forced it into a tie-break and had a match ball of her own. But then she was unable to convert it as El Tayeb put up a fight and a loose shot at the front resulted in a stroke against the Kiwi player to hand the win to El Tayeb.