Sobhy Doubles Home Interest In ToC L16
20 Jan 2024
USA's Sabrina Sobhy delighted her home crowd with an excellent straight games triumph over Sivasangari Subramaniam to book her place in the women's last 16 of the JP Morgan Tournament of Champions, the PSA World Tour Platinum event at Grand Central Terminal in New York.
Sobhy, who was meeting Subramaniam for the second time on the PSA World Tour in the space of a couple of months, avenged her defeat at the Hong Kong Football Club Open to progress to the third round by winning 11-9, 11-7, 11-4.
"Coming into this match I thought it was going to be closer. I knew it was going to be really hard - the score didn't necessarily display how difficult it was," said Sobhy, who will join compatriot Olivia Weaver, the No.8 seed, in the third round.
"Siva is always such a threat; if you ever give her anything open it could be in the nick immediately.
"I tried to be focused and present. At the end when I had a comfortable lead I couldn't think about winning at all because I knew she could have easily got six, seven, eight points in a row.
"She has that much talent and that much capability and it's always going to be a battle regardless."
In the men's draw, reigning champion Diego Elias made a successful start to his title defence by dispatching tournament wildcard Andrew Douglas 3/0, while England's world No.27 Nathan Lake pulled off the biggest shock result of the day, coming back from one game down to defeat world No.16 Mohamed ElSherbini.