Saturday, 10 August 2019

Cape Town – After a week of long matches, the finals were surprisingly one-sided with the two Egyptians coming out on top of their respectice matches.

In the women’s final third seed Menna Hamed (EGY) took on local favourite Milnay Louw (RSA). Milnay had recorded upset wins in both her previous matches and would have expected to push Hamed all the way. Hamed however seemed to have other ideas and buoyed from her semi-final victory over first seed Salma Yousseff, put on a brilliant shot-making display to win the final in straight games.

Hamed commended Squash SA on very well-run event, “Thank you so much to the organisers for putting on such an incredible event. Cape Town is beautiful and I will definitely be back.”

The men’s semi-final was a dream line-up, with first seed Lucas Serme (FRA) taking on second seed Youssef Ibrahim (EGY). With a place in the world championships up for grabs for the winner, there was an extra incentive for both players. Throughout the tournament Serme had been dominant, not dropping a game on the way to the final, while Ibrahim’s run had been very contrasting with him having to battle from two games down in both his quarter and semi-final. However, perhaps it was the extra-time spent on the glass court that aided Ibrahim as he put on a clinic in finals match play to take the match 3-0 and secure the Growthpoint SA Open title.

Ibrahim said, “This has been one of my best ever tournaments, playing in front of this great crowd and in such an amazing venue, I am really happy to take the title”.

The Growthpoint SA Open wraps up the 3 major events Growthpoint sponsor each year with the Growthpoint SA Nationals and Growthpoint Inter-Provincials having taken place earlier this year in Brooklyn Mall, Pretoria and Durban respectively.

2019 Growthpoint SA Open – Results Day 6 (Saturday, 10 August 2019)

(3) Menna Hamed (EGY) beat (5) Milnay Louw (RSA) 11-3, 11-5, 11-2

(2) Youssef Ibrahim (EGY) beat (1) Lucas Serme (FRA) 11-6, 11-7, 11-6