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Nicol David claims the women’s ATCO World Series Finals title
with the world watching on.
SkySports continued their live coverage at Queens Club in
London, for the final day of the event that saw the reigning
world No1 contain a spirited challenge from Madeline Perry,
ranked two places below her.
Perry, who knocked out England’s home hope Jenny Duncalf in
yesterday’s semi final, played a confident game from the start
and took an early lead in the first game. David wasn’t going to
let her opponent build up too much of an advantage however, and
was always within touching distance.
The scores stayed tight right the way up to 9-all, with Perry
stepping forward to volley early and easily matching the higher
seed for width and precision. It was only at this stage that
David upped the pace, working Perry out of position and
finishing off two rallies to take the first game 11/9.
This became the pattern for the rest of the match too. Neither
player was ever more than three points away from one another, as
the finalists seemed to cancel each other out with their
efforts. Similarly, at 9-all in the second game, Nicol again
found an extra half-yard of pace and her lethal attacking shots
saw off the second game in her favour, also 11/9.
Just as in the previous games, the score-line showed exactly how
closely fought this contest was, with every bit of ground gained
by one player, the other would immediately pull level. The
standard of line and length squash on display was at it’s
highest all week and easily the most closely matched contest of
the week. Again the scores were tied at 8-8 and again, Perry
seemed to lack the quality finishing in the most important
periods of the match. David on the other hand, held game-ball’s
in the first two games and finished each off on the first time
of asking. Match-ball was a similar story, with Perry managing
to reduce the deficit by one point before David claimed the
title as her own.
The Malaysian played five matches this week and dropped just one
game, coming at the hand of Laura Massaro in the semi finals.
No player deserved a game more than Perry today for a sterling
effort against the world No1 but on this occasion it wasn’t to
be.
David said after winning the title: “Winning the World Series
Finals title is a great start to 2012 and having the top 8
players here and contending for it makes it very special. It’s
never easy but I’ve felt good all week and very pleased to be
playing well. Hopefully there’s more to come!
“Knowing that tonight was going to be a longer game felt weird
after playing best of three all week. It felt like a longer
game today, which is strange as yesterday I played three game
too, but I don’t tend to approach matches differently depending
on that. I played well during the crucial points tonight and
I’m delighted to have won.”
ATCO World Series Final
Nicol David bt Madeline Perry – 11/9, 11/9, 11/9 in 41mins |
Life
is Simple: Eat, sleep, play Squash
