World No.1 Nouran Gohar stepped onto court as the world’s highest ranked female player for the first time as she dispatched England’s Sarah-Jane Perry 2-0.
Gohar is making her first appearance since a knee injury put a premature end to her title challenge at the Black Ball Open back in March, but claimed the World No.1 spot during the six-month suspension of the tour following the retirement of previous incumbent and defending women’s World Tour Finals champion Raneem El Welily.
“It’s never easy against her, she’s a very talented player, very skilful and one of the most capable on tour,” said Gohar.
“She’s big, so it’s quite tough to play against her but she’s very fair, so it’s also very enjoyable to play against her. I really have to adapt my game plan to play her, but I’m very happy with my performance today and I’m super happy to be back on court after six months."
The 22-year-old sits in second place in Group B behind World Champion Nour El Sherbini, who also made her return to action following the restart of the PSA World Tour tonight in Cairo.
El Sherbini is making her first appearance since March after opting to sit out of Manchester Open earlier this month. Following a season that was disrupted by injury and illness, the break looks to have done El Sherbini some good as the World No.2 came storming out of the traps to take maximum points at the Mall of Arabia with a commanding win over New Zealand’s Joelle King.
“It’s definitely good to be back and I think there is no better place to start my season than in my home country,” said El Sherbini.
“It’s a very hard first tournament to play. I’m playing the top eight in the world and it could be a final in any match, so it’s very hard to start like this. We’re playing in a group, there are four of us and we have to win two of them [to qualify for the semis]."
Meanwhile, Manchester Open champion Nour El Tayeb picked up where she left off there as she dismissed United States No.1 Amanda Sobhy in a comfortable Group B opener.
Group stage action continues tomorrow and play begins at 18:00 (GMT+2). All six fixtures from the Mall of Arabia will be broadcast on SQUASHTV (rest of world), Eurosport Player (Europe only), ON Sport (Egypt) and the official Facebook page of the PSA World Tour.
For more information on the 2019-20 CIB PSA World Tour Finals, visit the official website and follow the PSA World Tour on Twitter, Facebook and Insta
Results: CIB PSA World Tour Finals – Men’s Group A Day One
[1] Ali Farag (EGY) bt [8] Simon Rösner (GER) 3-0: 12-10, 11-6 (31m)
[6] Diego Elias (PER) bt [4] Karim Abdel Gawad (EGY) 2-1: 9-11, 11-3, 11-5 (55m)
Results: CIB PSA World Tour Finals – Men’s Group B Day One
[7] Joel Makin (WAL) bt [2] Tarek Momen (EGY) 2-1: 11-5, 6-11, 11-9 (50m)
Results: CIB PSA World Tour Finals – Women’s Group A Day One
[1] Nour El Sherbini (EGY) bt [8] Joelle King (NZL) 2-0: 11-9, 11-1 (22m)
[3] Nouran Gohar (EGY) bt [6] Sarah-Jane Perry (ENG) 2-0: 11-7, 12-10 (28m)
Results: CIB PSA World Tour Finals – Women’s Group B Day One
[3] Nouran Gohar (EGY) bt [6] Sarah-Jane Perry (ENG) 2-0: 11-7, 12-10 (28m)
Draw - Men’s Group A: To Be Played September 29th
[1] Ali Farag (EGY) v [4] Karim Abdel Gawad (EGY)
[6] Diego Elias (PER) v [8] Simon Rösner (GER)
Draw - Men’s Group B: To Be Played September 29th
[3] Paul Coll (NZL) v [5] Marwan ElShorbagy (EGY)
Draw - Women’s Group A: To Be Played September 29th
[1] Nour El Sherbini (EGY) v [3] Nouran Gohar (EGY)
[6] Sarah-Jane Perry (ENG) v [8] Joelle King (NZL)
Draw - Women’s Group B: To Be Played September 29th
[4] Camille Serme (FRA) v [5] Hania El Hammamy (EGY)
