El Welily Survives Scare At Carol Weymuller

Palikal (L) and El Welily before their Carol Weymuller first round match. (image: Jean Ervasti)
Pallikal (L) and El Welily before their Carol Weymuller first round match. (image: Jean Ervasti)

Carol Weymuller Open Draw

U.S. Pro Series Live

Report courtesy of PSA

Twenty-four hours after watching number two seed Laura Massaro and number three seed Alison Waters suffer shock first round defeats at the 2015 Carol Weymuller Open World No.1 Raneem El Welily was forced to call on all of her experience and talent to avoid a similar fate at the hands of Indian number one Dipika Pallikal.

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El Welily (L) in action against Pallikal. (image: Jean Ervasti)

El Welily began the encounter in impressive fashion as she stormed into a two-game lead and appeared to be cruising into the quarter-finals before 24-year-old Chennai based Pallikal produced an inspired comeback, playing all out attack to overwhelm the Egyptian and dictate the play as she levelled the match and forced a decider.

With El Welily struggling for consistency Pallikal pressed her advantage at the start of the fifth but couldn’t maintain her composure, producing a series of errors which allowed the 26-year-old from Alexandria to regain her footing in the match and she made the most of the reprieve, taking the match 11-6, 11-7, 5-11, 7-11, 11-5.

“I feel like there’s lots of pressure on me at the moment,” said El Welily.

“Being World No.1 and the rankings being so close makes me feel the importance of every point. I lose my game when I play with pressure but I am constantly learning to play with it.”

El Welily will now take on qualifier Joey Chan in the quarter-finals after the Hong Kong number two knocked out number eight seed Rachel Grinham 3-1 in what was just her second victory in the last three years over the former World No.1.

Elsewhere Egyptian pairing Nour El Sherbini and Omneya Abdel Kawy also progressed into the last eight, with Sherbini comfortably seeing off Delia Arnold 3-0 and Kawy coming through a titanic 3-2 encounter with Jenny Duncalf.

All matches are streaming and scoring live on U.S. Pro Series Live powered by www.clublocker.com. For more information, like Carol Weymuller Open on Facebook, and follow @CarolWeymuller on Twitter.

Schedule, October 3:
[1] Raneem El Welily (EGY) v [Q] Joey Chan (HKG)
[5] Nour El Sherbini (EGY) v [4] Omneya Abdel Kawy (EGY)
[WC] Joelle King (NZL) v [6] Sarah-Jane Perry (ENG)
[Q] Joshana Chinappa (IND) v [Q] Salma Hany Ibrahim (EGY)