Thank you San Francisco!
Thank you San Francisco!
The 2022 Oracle NetSuite Open quarterfinals will be without two of the top eight seeds as Hong Kong’s Chan Sin Yuk and Egypt’s Aly Abou El Einen toppled six seed Olivia Blatchford Clyne and seven seed Youssef Soliman in the round of sixteen Saturday, October 1.
The second round also saw the introduction of glass court play in Pier 70’s Building 12, which has undergone a complete transformation from a 19th and 20th century shipbuilding hub into 60,000 square feet of mixed use open space. The glass court stadium is surrounded by high ceilings and massive steel columns from San Francisco’s industrial and maritime history overlooking the bay.
Second round matches took places throughout the Bay Area at Pier 70, the Olympic Club, University Club and Squash Zone.
Chan, a twenty-year-old Columbia sophomore, has made a professional breakthrough over the past six months rising from world No. 72 to world No. 36. Playing on the glass court, Chan extinguished home hopes against Team USA’s world No. 22 Olivia Blatchford Clyne with an impressive display of control and shotmaking to win 11-5, 11-7 in fifteen minutes. Chan will now face defending champion and top seed Amanda Sobhy in the quarterfinals.
“This is the first time I’ve made it through to a PSA Silver event quarter final so that’s really big for me and I’m really pleased with this result,” Chan said. “I’ll play either Amanda [Sobhy] or Sana [Ibrahim] tomorrow but I always watched Amanda on SQUASHTV and I love watching her play so I’m hoping I get to play her.”
Chan Sin Yuk (r) against Olivia Blatchford Clyne
Elsewhere in the women’s draw, four seed Hollie Naughton and eight seed Lisa Aitken needed three games to outlast Rachel Arnold and Marie Stephan, respectively, at the University Club.
Eleinen, world No. 58, already produced a first round upset over world No. 30 Abdulla Al Tamimi on Friday, and backed it up with one of the biggest upsets of his career at the Olympic Club against world No. 13 Soliman. The all-Egyptian marathon match extended to an incredible seventy-two minutes with Eleinen emerging victorious 11-8, 7-11, 14-12.
“It feels amazing,” Eleinen said. “I had ten good days of training before this tournament to prepare and coming into a silver event, I didn’t feel any pressure, Its on the more experienced guys. I just wanted to enjoy my squash and give it my best. I’ve actually played both Al Tamimi and Soliman before and against Soliman, I lost a close 80-minute match and this time I just wanted to give it my best. Given the best of three, I had to warm up well to give myself the best chance. At 12-12 in the third game, I had to just try and stay tough and control the controllables. Being in the quarterfinals of a Silver event is massive for me and regardless of who I play, just want to enjoy the moment and give it my all.”
At Squash Zone, India’s Saurav Ghosal held off a comeback from England’s George Parker 11-6, 13-15, 11-3 in fifty-seven minutes to set up a quarterfinal against two seed Mohamed ElShorbagy.
The remaining matches will all take place at Pier 70 with two sessions of quarterfinals set to take place Sunday from 12pm noon local time.
For tickets visit oraclenetsuiteopen.com/tickets. Watch all of the quarterfinal action live on SquashTV.
