Skip to main content

Fiery Nicol beats Annie to cruise into the quarter-finals

A walk in the park: Nicol David stayed firmly on track for a record seventh world title at the Women’s World Open at Cayman Islands. 
A walk in the park: Nicol David stayed firmly on track for a record seventh world title at the Women’s World Open at Cayman Islands.
 
PETALING JAYA: World No. 1 Nicol David stayed firmly on track for a record seventh world title after effortlessly crushing Hong Kong’s Annie Au in the second round of the Women’s World Open at Cayman Islands.

The 23-year-old Annie, ranked ninth in the world, has never beaten Nicol in 12 meetings – not even when she was at her very best.

This time, Annie came into the tournament suffering from a slight dip in form, having lost in the first round of the Hong Kong Open earlier this month – and was duly punished by Nicol, who won 11-3, 11-2, 11-3 in just 25 minutes on Monday.

It was a truly dominant performance by the 29-year-old Nicol, a far cry from her Malaysian Open campaign back in September, where she struggled to beat Annie in four sets.

In fact, Monday’s match was over even before it started as Nicol raced to early leads in a one-sided match.

“It’s great getting back here ... I love the courts, the settings and the music too, so it’s really nice to be playing here again, especially in the World Open,” said the six-time world champion on
www.squashsite.co.uk.

“The last three years here were memorable for me but this is the big one ... and everyone will be going for it and stepping up their game.

“Who I face next doesn’t really matter much to me because I’m happy to be playing well here and am looking forward to the quarter-finals and enjoying it.”

The Penangite will next face Irish veteran Madeline Perry, who upset Egyptian world junior champion Nour El Sherbini 11-2, 11-9, 11-9 in 39 minutes.

“The condition here was really hot but I knew it would suit me more. However, I didn’t expect to start with a 7-0 lead in the first set,” said Perry.

“Still, I’m really pleased to get through because my form has been up and down lately. But this is the world meet and I really wanted to be able to perform here.”

In other second round matches, sixth seed Jenny Duncalf overpowered France’s Camille Serme 12-10, 11-6, 8-11, 11-8 to set up an all-England clash with fourth seed Alison Waters in the quarter-finals.
Waters had a breeze against Mexico’s Samantha Teran, winning 11-5, 12-10, 11-3 in 29 minutes.



THE STAR

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Malaysian junior athletes are just too ‘lembik’

Saya setuju. We are working on more coaches! “ @ManOlimpik : Malaysian junior athletes are just too ‘lembik’ http://t.co/7D7wmHWaNy ” — Khairy Jamaluddin (@Khairykj) June 10, 2014 The benchmark. Can our junior athletes train as hard as Malaysia's world No.1 badminton player, Lee Chong Wei? “IT IS okay lah. The training is not too bad lah. I will try lah … Wah, so hard lah today.” These are some of the common statements I hear from our juniors nowadays. It is not only in badminton. It is the easy-going, laid-back attitude and lack of competitiveness at grassroots level that we have problems producing quality players. I have travelled quite a bit. After ending my decade-long career with the national team, I went to play in the league in Europe. It’s different there. The European athletes know what they want. And they do it with real focus. Even the young ones possess admirable self-control and show a high level of commitment. During my time in the ...
12 comments
Read more

Badminton: Fans rooting for all-Malaysian semis

Reports: RAJES PAUL KUALA LUMPUR: The home fans will be rooting for an all-Malaysian men’s singles semi-final between Lee Chong Wei and Liew Daren. But Chong Wei is more fancied to advance than Daren in quarter-final matches against Indonesian Simon Santoso and Dane Peter Gade-Christensen respectively at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil today. Yesterday, Chong Wei defeated Vietnamese Nguyen Tien Minh 21-9, 18-21, 21-7 in a second-round match that saw the world number one struggling to adapt to the draught in the stadium in the second game. And Daren continued a fairy tale run in his home Open, blowing away a toothless Hsueh Hsuan-yi of Taiwan 21-14, 21-12. Although Choong Wei had to slog for the win over Tien Minh, the top seed and defending champion felt that he was playing better by the day. “I got off to a good start but found it hard to cope with the draught. I tried to catch up after losing my momentum but that did not happen and I decided to conserve energy for ...
11 comments
Read more

Organising Major Sports Events Can Inspire Sports Culture Among The People - Khairy

PUTRAJAYA, June 5 (Bernama) -- Organising major sports events can help inspire sports culture among the people and ensure a healthy lifestyle said Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin. Khairy said the Tour of Malaysia cycling race organised since 1963, for example, can encourage more people to take the sport in a more competitive way or just for recreation purposes. "A study carried out by a world renown medical journal, The Lancet, revealed that 61 percent of adults in Malaysia do not engage themselves in active sports. "A study by the Health Ministry revealed that only 25 percent of Malaysians exercise," he said in his speech when launching the 2013 Tour of Malaysia (Jelajah Malaysia) at the Youth and Sports Ministry, here, Wednesday. "Cycling, though not as popular here as in countries like Denmark, the activity is becoming popular among the people as can be seen through an increase in sale of bicycles for recreation," he sa...
Post a Comment
Read more