CAIRO – World No.1 Nour el-Sherbini is the women’s 2021 CIB Squash Open Black Ball champion after she overcame fellow Egyptian Hania el-Hammamy at the Black Ball Sporting Club in Cairo, Egypt to win the PSA World Tour Gold title.
The pair met in the final of the Platinum tier Black Ball Open at this venue in March, 2020, while El-Hammamy – who won that clash – was a losing finalist in the Gold Black Ball event this time last year.
However, this time around El-Sherbini emerged victorious, with an 11-7, 9-11, 11-1, 11-7 victory seeing her win her fifth PSA title of 2021.
World Champion El-Sherbini came into the match having not dropped a game throughout the tournament and, while she made a good start to take the first game, the 26-year-old was pegged back in the second by a resilient El-Hammamy.
El-Sherbini also had to content with a cut on her knee sustained after a collision towards the end of the second game.
She came out firing on all cylinders in the third game and was simply sublime as she blew El-Hammamy away, dropping just one point in the progress.
The fourth was a more evenly-contested affair, but El-Sherbini’s quality was evident as she held her opponent off to capture her second trophy at this venue and her first at the Gold edition of the Black Ball event.
It is El-Sherbini’s 27th PSA title and the Egyptian will take home over $17,500 for her efforts in Cairo this week.
“I’m really happy and proud,” said El-Sherbini.
“Black Ball has always been a special event for me and I love to play here. From the first event, I reached about four finals and lost in them, so to be stood here having won two Black Ball Opens is an honour for me. I lost one of the finals against Hania, it was her first Platinum event and I’m sure it’s not going to be the last.
“She’s amazing and the three of us [El-Sherbini, Nouran Gohar and El-Hammamy] have been raising the bar so high this season and they’re playing the best seasons of their lives, so I’m really happy with my performance.”
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