Low downs giant-slayer Beddoes at British Open

Seventh-seed registers 3-2 win against English player in squash event.

KINGSTON UPON HULL:

Low Wee Wern, who nearly became a giant-killer before her home crowd in last month’s World Championships, followed it by halting a giant-killer in the British Open.

The seventh-seeded Malaysian saw four match points slip agonisingly away against Laura Massaro, the eventual world champion, in the quarter-finals in Penang, but now sneaked a narrow win against another English player, Emma Beddoes.

Low’s 11-9, 11-9, 6-11, 6-11, 11-9 success was a courageously completed effort against an unseeded opponent, who overcame world finalist Nour el Sherbini on Tuesday and who had little to lose 24 hours later.

“It was a hard loss to take,” said Low of her setback against Massaro.

“I didn’t think I was that close to beating a world champion. But I’ve been able to take the positives and I know that I am almost up there with them.”

Meanwhile, Raneem el Weleily progressed with an 11-5, 11-6, 11-3 win against Kasey Brown, the former top five Australian, showing once again that when she pegs down her concentration she has the talent to beat anybody.

David blasts organisers for lack of respect

World number one Nicol David of Malaysia criticised the British Open organisers’ attitudes to the women’s game after being made to play her opening match on conventional plaster courts a mile from the main arena.

David played well enough in a 11-8, 12-10, 11-8 win over the talented Heba El Torky of Egypt, but must make radical adjustments to play the second round on an all-glass show-court where the men have been playing from the beginning.

Arguably the world’s highest profile squash player after topping the rankings for nearly eight years, David has special reasons for speaking out now against discrimination, which she appeared to accept without comment last year.

“Now you have a women’s world champion,” she said, referring to her rival Laura Massaro, who has become the first English woman ever to hold both the World and British Open titles after succeeding the Malaysian as world champion last month.

“That has to be special. There are also so many English players in the top ten or top twelve and they are all here — surely you want to display them?” asked David.

“Why not put them all on the glass court? It’s the showcase and that’s what makes sense.” 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2014.

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