Reigning champion Nicol David had to come from behind against one of the tour’s most improved players on Thursday before reaching the quarter-finals in search of her sixth British Open title.
The top-seeded title-holder from Malaysia won 11-9, 9-11, 11-8, 11-5 against Emma Beddoes, the world number 13 from England, and slipped to a 2-6 deficit in the third game before chiselling her way towards a painstaking victory in Hull, northern England.
“I was just holding my ground in the second and third games,” David said. “I just decided to settle down a little bit more, to stick with being consistent and gaining intensity and everything got a bit better. She made a few mistakes and that gave me some momentum.”
The most important of those errors was in the first game after Beddoes had attacked boldly and come from 5-9 to 9-9, only to hit the ball out of court and then strike a return of serve down.
She nevertheless played with skill and imagination, driving hard and taking risks with boasts and drops, to come from 5-8 down to take the second game and advance to a 6-2 lead in the third.
But the champion handled the mini-crisis well, playing almost faultlessly if conservatively throughout the rest of the match, and making a surge from 4-4 in the decider which earned her seven out of eight points.
“I am really pleased to win that 3-1,” she said. “I knew I had to get sharper and play with more intensity and I think I did.â€
– No birthday presents –
David now faces another much-improved player, Sara-Jane Perry, the surprise British national champion, whom David beat on Perry’s birthday during last year’s British Open.
Once again it is Perry’s birthday on Friday, and David was insistent the result should be the same as last year. “No –- no birthday presents,” she said.
“I’m looking forward to taking another step.”
If she does she may have a semi-final with Laura Massaro, the third-seeded Englishwoman whom she has played in both the last two British Open finals.
Massaro came through with a 11-8, 11-9, 8-11, 11-1 win over Nouran Gohar, an impressive result given Massaro has only just returned to competition after five weeks out during which she pondered her squash future.
She trailed 4-7 in the first game and 8-9 in the second, and only really got on top in the fourth against a 17-year-old Egyptian who struck the ball with great venom and looked self-confident enough to have won.
Massaro’s next opponent, New Zealand’s Joelle King, has had a far more protracted comeback to squash.
The former world number four was in tears when, following eight months out with a career-threatening injury, she too reached the quarter-finals on Thursday.
King achieved this success with a 11-5, 11-7, 11-2 win over Victoria Lust, the English wild card player who in the previous round brought down the former world finalist from Egypt, Omneya Abdel Kawy.
“I feel so emotional because it has been such a long road back,” said King, who had Achilles tendon surgery in August.
“It’s really a privilege to come back to do what I love most,” added the tall 26-year-old from Cambridge, on New Zealand’s North Island
The men’s event saw Egypt’s eighth-seeded Omar Mosaad beaten 10-12, 11-5, 4-11, 11-7, 11-7 by one of his country’s dazzling new talents, Mazen Hesham, with the 21-year-old now playing champion Gregory Gaultier.
The Frenchman won 11-3, 11-1, 11-7 against Tom Richards of England, and thus joined the two other front runners for the title, world number one Mohamed El Shorbagy and three-time former champion Nick Matthew, who reached the quarter-finals on Wednesday.