A married couple both claimed titles at the Manchester Open 2023 Silver squash event – after a six-year wait for silverware at the same tournament.
Ali Farag clinched the men’s championship while his wife Nour El Tayeb also claimed a gold medal.
The last time they got the champions together was at the 2017 US Open.
“I am glad that I won the championship with Ali! I feel empowered when our daughter watched our match,” said Nour.
Nearly 50 players from around the world headed to Manchester for the tournament at the National Squash Centre from May 17 to 21.
The final started between Nour (Egy) and Belgium’s Nele Gilis at 3pm.
Nour El Tayeb’s rank third in the world, while Nele Gilis ranks eighth. However, the score was close during the whole match (11-9, 11-7, 5-11, 11-9).
Nour built the advantage early in the first two rounds, she made it hard for the Belgium player to hit the ball, which also consumed a lot of her energy.
After losing the first two rounds, Nele didn’t give up and started to change her strategy, focusing on hitting the ball to different parts of the wall. This helped her win the third round after getting the game point early.
The packed crowd were cheering for every point after a long battle.
Eventually, Nour didn’t lose the chance, even Nele was trying very hard to close the gap, but it was too hard to catch up.
The Egypt player commented: “Even though I can see her getting tired, I couldn’t close it out because even though she’s tired she keeps trying every point and keeps changing her game every few points.
“ It was a tough game, and I can see the improvement of Nele.”
Unlike Nour, who took the lead early during the match, Ali lost the first match (10-12) and won the second one after a long match (13-11).
Nevertheless, Karim Abdel Gawad got tired in the rest of the match, and couldn’t stop Ali scoring quickly in the rest of two rounds.
“I hate losing! That is what drives me to keep going,” said the champion.
“At first, I didn’t start off too badly but Karim was really sharp. It was very similar to the first game in the World Champs – he was 9-4 up and I came back to 10-9 and then he came back to 10-all.”
There were 10 England players who attended this tournament, including Patrick Rooney, a young star who won an open championship recently, and Georgina Kennedy, ranked sixth on the leaderboard.
There were a few humorous conversations during the match when both plays thought they should earn this point, after running against each other.
Japanese player, Satomi Watanabe, had a phenomenal season, climbing up over seats and becoming one of the top 20th players in the world.
The Yokohama girl said: “I came to UK because there are better players, which can help me improve my skills quicker.
“I wish in the future I can help improve the squash culture in Asia.”
Smiling before the camera, she mentioned that she never cared about the ranking.
“ I just try to enjoy every match!” she added.
“I love playing in Manchester. People there are friendly.”
