[1] Hania El Hammamy (EGY) 3-0 [3] Satomi Watanabe (JPN) 12-10, 11-7, 11-4 (44m)
As often, the first game was crucial as Satomi, with the support of the crowd as she is based in Roehampton, a few miles away from Wimbledon, looking well positioned to take the opener, 10/8. The game was very close throughout, and Hania seemed a bit unsettled, pretty much pick up where she left off yesterday.
But that where we see the quality of the top players, don’t we. Calmely, Hania started mixing the height of the shots, depriving Satomi of the pace and weight in the ball the Japanese needs to find her winners. Four rallies later, Hania was going off court, 12/10, after a 17m battle.
The second saw both players still making a few unforced errors, but less than the previous game (4 each in the first game, only 2 in the second), but Hania seemed like a big weight had been lifted off her shoulder. Now despatching her squash, she was varying the shots, while the under pressure Satomi seemed to make a few wrong choices of shots. 5/2, 7/3, 9/6 for Hania – who made her two errors at the end of the game – and finally 11/7, 13m game.
To be honest, the last game, Satomi didn’t have much incidence of the score, Hania was soaring with lifts and lobs, then lovely volleys, forcing her opponent to attack from wrong positions, again and again. 6/1, 7/2, 11/4, 9m game.
Not a single error from Hania in that game, but 6 for Satomi, forced to make those clips of the tin or out of court shots… Pressure. Pure pressure, stunning squash for the world number one.
Hania : “I was only a point away from losing confidence if I had lost that first. I made a massive push to get back in and after winning that game, the confidence grew and I sorted a few things out which helped for the first part of the match.
“She’s an attacking player and when I had the ball falling short, she goes for her shots, and I had to get it to the back so definitely lifting helped with that.
“It’s great for me to have Laura Massaro here with me, it’s an opportunity for me to build with her and improve things for the future, so we’ll analyse today and get ready for tomorrow.”
