Married Couple Gilis & Coll Reach London Classic Finals

Married couple Nele Gilis and Paul Coll have reached the finals of the London Classic presented by Bassim Haidar following respective wins over Japan's Satomi Watanabe and Malaysia's Eain Yow Ng at Alexandra Palace.

Gilis and Coll lifted the New Zealand Open titles on the same night back in December 2023, but Sunday represents their first opportunity to claim glory together as a married couple since tying the knot in the summer of 2024.

No.8 seed Gilis - who received a walkover into the last four after top seed Olivia Weaver withdrew from their quarter-final match - upset No.3 seed Watanabe 11-7, 11-13, 11-2, 11-3 to reach her first Gold-level final since the Singapore Open in November 2023.

"I'm ecstatic, I was so close to reaching the final last year, and I just missed out," said Gilis afterwards.

"I couldn't be happier to go one step further this year. I didn't do much differently [in the last two games], I just stuck to my game plan and after the second I felt like I was playing well. I'm not quite sure what happened [in the second], I lost a little bit of accuracy and she was very good around the middle of the court, so I just stuck to my game plan and tried to do a little bit better.

"I'm so determined [to win tomorrow]. I've been working so hard to get back to this stage and I will give it my all."

The Belgian will take on Egyptian Amina Orfi in the final after the No.2 seed ended the reign of defending champion Sivasangari Subramaniam, winning 11-7, 11-7, 7-11, 11-5 to reach her 13th PSA final and first at the London Classic.

"I knew it was going to be a tough match, we played several times last season and we're both very close [in ranking]," said Orfi afterwards.

"I knew it was going to be a battle, but I knew she was going to be under pressure being the defending champion. She's [Gilis] done really well this tournament. She didn't play the quarters match, but she had a great performance today, so I'm going to see what I can do tomorrow."

Defending men's champion Coll won 11-3, 11-5, 11-7 in 39 minutes to reach back-to-back London Classic finals. He is targeting his first PSA title since March's New Zealand Open on home soil.

He will play world No.4 Joel Makin - who can overtake Coll to reach world No.3 if he wins the title decider.

"I'm stoked for her [Gilis] to be in another big final," said Coll afterwards.

"She's been training hard in the off season and got her squash into good form, so it would be amazing if she could get the win. Last time in New Zealand, that was a great party afterwards, so it'd be awesome to get a double, but we've got a lot of work ahead of us and two tough opponents."

Makin upset top seed Diego Elias in his semi-final, winning 11-6, 11-4, 6-11, 14-12 after 80 minutes of gripping squash. The Welshman beat Elias in a contentious clash en-route to securing his first major title at the PSA Squash Tour Finals in June. He has now won three of his last four matches against the world No.2.

The first two games were one sided, with Elias not entirely happy with the court floor and he looked disinterested as Makin charged ahead to take a 2/0 lead. Elias refocused and took the third, before Makin battled to victory in a thrilling fourth game to complete the win.

"He's done this quite a few times, where he can look disinterested and then turn it on," said Makin afterwards.

"He's that good at squash, I wasn't really that interested in what he was doing, I was just trying to close down the lines and get positions around the middle whilst keeping him behind me for periods. He's always in and out, but that's the level he can play. I've seen him beat world No.1s doing that and then turn the match around. I didn't suddenly think that he wasn't interested today, I was well aware of what could happen."