Submitted by Jon Diamond on
Chris Clarke writes:
Saturday was quarter-final day at the Women's GC Worlds. The day had a mixture of sunshine, showers, cloud and 10 minutes of heavy rain.
In the top quarter, Soha Moustafa had a comfortable 7-3, 7-1, 7-3 win against Virginia Arney (Aus). Virginia has had a marvellous event, making the last 8 having been the 48th ranked player in the event and showing the value of excellent positional play.
The second quarter had the strongest match on paper between Jenny Clarke (NZ) and the last remaining England player Rachel Gee - a repeat of the 2011 final. Rachel took an early 3-0 lead despite losing the toss, but Jenny played well to level at 3-3 before rushing Rachel through 7 and going 6-3 down. From here. Jenny clawed her way back and was in full control at 12 and had generated a good opportunity to get to 13 when she ran 12 by a millimetre when trying to stay in the jaws. This enabled Rachel to take 3 yard position at 13 and Jenny only had once chance to clear which she missed. Rachel then upped her game and Jenny missed a lot of hoops and clearances to only score 1 point in the next two games to give Rachel a 7-6, 7-1, 7-0 victory.
The third quarter had the most competitive match in an all-Egyptian clash between Pouline Salib and Maram Nabil. Pouline looked the stronger player with powerful clearances and longer hoops and duly took a 2-0 lead 7-5, 7-5. Maram fought back to level 7-4, 7-5 and take the match to a deciding game. Pouline always looked the stronger player to me in the decider, but the scores were tied at 2-2, 4-4 and 5-5 before Pouline ran 11 to the side of hoop 12 and looked the likely winner. However, a series of either missed or flicked clearances gave Maram the 12th hoop and they played to 13 where Pouline's ball came up short when approaching. After some interplay, Pouline only flicked a 7 yard clearance and Maram ran an angled hoop to reach the semi-final.
The last quarter featured number 2 seed Amany Hassan against number 8 seed Jamie Gumbrell (Aus). Despite solid performances in the event so far, Amany was unable to respond to Jamie's consistency and solid ball striking and somewhat surprisingly lost 4-7, 4-7, 4-7.
The two semi-finals will start tomorrow morning. I had predicted Rachel and Soha as the two most likely winners pre-event and their semi-final tomorrow will provide the favourite for the final. I think Rachel has a slight advantage. In the other semi-final, Jamie looks in better form than Maram and I would make her favourite to reach the final.
Coverage will be available, as usual, on the CA's Youtube channel.
