Team USA’s Amanda Sobhy came back from 2-0 down against world No. 4 Joelle King to pull off a five-game win and reach the inaugural Paris Open semifinals Thursday, August 31.
Sobhy, world No. 5, started the day’s opening quarterfinal match slow, dropping the opening game 11-3 and second game 11-8. The American returned to court in the third game with renewed purpose winning 11-6, then edged an important fourth game 11-8. Sobhy continued the momentum in the fifth to seal a spot in the season’s first Platinum semifinals 11-2 after forty-seven minutes.
“It took a while for me to get going and get Joelle [King] off the middle of the court, but once I got going I felt like I got going,” Sobhy said. “I put in a good block of work. At this age I’m feeling the best I’ve ever felt – I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been, movement wise the best, squash experience and it’s great to have Wael [El Hindi] in my corner.”
Amanda will face Egypt’s world No. 1 and top seed Nouran Gohar in the semifinals Friday at 7pm local time, 1pm ET.
“My sister [Sabrina Sobhy] had a phenomenal win last night so I felt like I had to set the tone for the day, and then I was down 2-0 and when I was down I said ‘you’re okay, keep going and keep pressing’. I was a bit anxious at the start but then I let go and took it one point at a time and it worked.”
After a statement upset win over world No. 3 Hania El Hammamy on Wednesday, Sabrina Sobhy fell just short of the semifinals with a narrow five-game loss against former Harvard teammate and world No. 8 Georgina Kennedy. The English international reached her first career Platinum semifinal 6-11, 11-8, 6-11, 11-8, 11-2 in fifty-three minutes.
“She [Sabrina Sobhy] clearly started feeling it in the fifth game,” Kennedy said. “We’ve been training together since the beginning as we played at the same club and we were saying our bodies were hurting from the harder courts.
That was a brutal match and we’ve had brutal matches since we were playing together at uni. I rarely came out on top in those challenge matches as well [against Sobhy]. I’m happy to come out on top this time.”
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