Squash: Orfi makes short work of El Hammamy
Amina Orfi beat Hania El Hammamy 3–0 in 39 minutes, after their 107-minute final in Doha. Her coach Hashim Samir highlights the variety of her game.
Contribution SNA · Author profile ·
Listen to this story
Synthetic English voice · 2 min 42 s
This time, Amina Orfi did not need a fifth game. The Egyptian won the Egyptian Open on Friday 16 October, beating Hania El Hammamy 3–0, 11–4, 11–4, 11–3, in 39 minutes. Eleven points conceded across the three games: Orfi kept the defending champion at arm's length on the scoreboard.
From 107 minutes in Doha to 39 minutes in Egypt
The contrast with their Qatar Classic final on 18 September is stark. Orfi won after 107 minutes and five games, taking the last game 12–10. El Hammamy had levelled at two games all and saved two championship balls before falling on the third.
In Egypt, Orfi won the first two games by the same score, then allowed her opponent only three points in the last. Two finals against the same rival, two wins, but a gap of 68 minutes between the reported durations.
A game with more options
Orfi's coach Hashim Samir described after the final a player whose shots have become more precise and whose options have multiplied. In remarks gathered by Framboise Gommendy for the tournament website, he stresses her progress: she no longer simply returns the ball and adapts her plan to each opponent.
Orfi also explained, in the same post-match interview, that she studies the draw before a tournament to target her work and looks for training partners whose styles resemble those she might face. The preparation described is therefore about building solutions against a given opponent.
A final shorter than the semi-finals
Both finalists had had to battle the day before. Orfi had beaten Nouran Gohar 3–1 in 71 minutes. El Hammamy had played five games and 86 minutes against Sivasangari Subramaniam. These durations give the context to their arrival in the final; they do not on their own explain the result.
Friday's win extends a balance of power already visible in Doha: Orfi beats El Hammamy again, this time with a much wider margin on the scoreboard.
Archive: Amina Orfi in Washington, 18 February 2024. Photo: Bangabandhu / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Layout and SNA logo added; adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Original photograph · CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
