El Sherbini Retains Black Ball Crown In Cairo

World No.1 Nour El Sherbini retained her women's CIB Squash Open Black Ball title after overcoming fellow Egyptian Hania El Hammamy in the final of the PSA World Tour Gold event at the Black Ball Sporting Club in Cairo.

The pair met in the final of the Platinum tier Black Ball Open at this venue in March 2020, while El Hammamy - who won that clash - was a losing finalist in the Gold Black Ball event this time last year. However, this time around El Sherbini emerged victorious, with an 11-7, 9-11, 11-1, 11-7 victory seeing her win her fifth PSA title of 2021.

This was El Sherbini's fifth Black Ball final appearance since March 2019, and her second title in a row after beating Amanda Sobhy in the March 2021 final.

World Champion El Sherbini came into the match having not dropped a game throughout the tournament and, while she made a good start to take the first game, the 26-year-old was pegged back in the second by a resilient El Hammamy. El Sherbini also had to content with a cut on her knee sustained after a collision towards the end of the second game.

She came out firing on all cylinders in the third game and was simply sublime as she blew El Hammamy away, dropping just one point in the progress. The fourth was a more evenly-contested affair, but El Sherbini's quality was evident as she held her opponent off to capture her second trophy at this venue and her first at the Gold edition of the Black Ball event.

It is El Sherbini's 27th PSA title and the Egyptian will take home over $17,500 for her efforts in Cairo this week.

"I'm really happy and proud," said El Sherbini.

"Black Ball has always been a special event for me and I love to play here. From the first event, I reached about four finals and lost in them, so to be stood here having won two Black Ball Opens is an honour for me. I lost one of the finals against Hania, it was her first Platinum event and I'm sure it's not going to be the last.

"She's amazing and the three of us [El Sherbini, Gohar and El Hammamy] have been raising the bar so high this season and they're playing the best seasons of their lives, so I'm really happy with my performance today."

Meanwhile, the men's event has now also got underway, with the likes of Miguel Rodriguez, Gregoire Marche, Saurav Ghosal and Youssef Ibrahim booking their places in the last 16.