FUNCHAL, Portugal — Egyptian squash duo Moustafa el-Sirty and Rana Ismail were victorious in the finals of the International Tournament Madeira Island.
El-Sirty was playing in his first event since February, and had knocked out the No.1 and 3 seeds – Bernat Jaume and Ben Smith – to reach this final.
Standing in his way was Portugal’s own Rui Soares, who was hoping to make it third time lucky after finishing as runner-up in this event in each of the last two years.
Defeat for Soares in the 2021 final also came against El Sirty, and the Portuguese No.1 suffered the same fate this time around, going down 3-1 in 56 minutes.
Speaking after the match, El-Sirty said according to psaworldtour: “It’s incredible. It gives me a lot of confidence to be back. It gives me that feeling that I can still play and I can still do what I was doing before and improve. I’m very proud.”
El Sirty’s victory completed an Egyptian double following Ismail’s win earlier in the day.
The No.2 seed came into this tournament having reached the semi-finals of the London Open last week and carried that good form all the way to the title in Funchal.
In truth, she was never truly troubled by Chan Yiwen in the final, despite dropping game three after taking a two-game lead, and came out firing again in the fourth, dropping just three points to wrap up glory.
“It’s a really good feeling,” she said after the match.
“It’s more than just winning, I needed this win. It’s my first title in around a year. I tried to believe in myself that I could win, I tried to play my best squash and I’m happy to have won.”
Elsewhere, Egypt’s Mohamad Zakaria and England’s Torrie Malik claimed the 2023 Northern Joe Cup titles on finals day in Manchester.
Zakaria came into this event having made history by becoming the youngest ever male winner on the PSA Tour at the Local World LA Open, while Malik was hoping to go one better than last year, when she finished as runner-up.
The winner that day was local favourite Saran Nghiem, who was once again standing between Malik and the trophy as the pair went head-to-head in a rematch.
By her own admission, Malik had not been at her best in her semi-final win over Nour Megahed, but saved her best performance for last, winning 3-0 in 32 minutes.
Game one was nip-and-tuck in the opening stages, before Malik took control midway through, winning six points on the bounce to move from 5-4 up to 11-4 and into a one-game lead.
The second game followed a similar pattern as Malik pulled clear in the closing stages to win 11-7 and move within one game of victory.
One game from victory was exactly where she was last year too, having taken a 2-0 lead in that final only for Nghiem to stage an impressive comeback, but there would be no repeat here.
Crucially, Malik won the first three points of game three to settle any nerves there might have been, and held onto her lead until the end, clinching glory with a backhand volley boast which sent Nghiem the wrong way.
The title represents the eighth of Malik’s PSA Tour career and her sixth in 2023 alone, as well as being her biggest to date, and speaking after the match, she said revealed how much it meant, especially after falling at the final hurdle one year ago.
“It means a lot to me to be honest because it’s my biggest title yet,” she said.
“Obviously I lost out 3-2 to Saran last year in the final after being 2-0 up, so I’m happy to win in three. I feel like today I was so patient, executed the game plan properly.”
Speaking on whether she was thinking about last year’s outcome at 2-0 up, she added: “I said to myself, ‘oh no what if she creeps back and gets it to 2-2 again’, but I’ve been working so hard on my mental strength in my matches.
“I’ve had so many matches recently so I feel like you just need to ignore those thoughts and just focus on each point, and I think I did that really well today.
“I think I saved the best match for last and it’s great.”
