The Allam British Open has two first-time champions after France’s Camille Serme and Egypt’s Mohamed Elshorbagy thrilled a packed crowd as they won two sensational finals at the Airco Arena.
Serme was taking on England’s former champion Laura Massaro and played superbly to deny the crowd favourite, while Shorbagy came from two-one down to deny the French a double, dethroning defending champion Gaultier after a gruelling 93-minute battle.
Lancashire’s Massaro felt that she did all she could to regain the British Open trophy .The 2013 champion admitted that her sensational 77-minute victory over world champion and world no.1 Nicol David from 2/0 and 5-0 down on Saturday had taken a lot out of her, and left her more tired than Serme, who had won her semi-final in just 32 minutes.
Nevertheless, the third seed from Preston righTly confessed to being “proud” of her performances in Hull, which was her first WSA Tour event since March, after mental and physical fatigue had forced her to take a break from competitive squash.
“I’m disappointed, but I’m proud of my week and I don’t feel like I really could have given it much more out there,” the former world champion said after her 11-3, 11-5, 8-11, 11-8 loss to the sixth seed.
“It was a really big win yesterday beating Nicol and obviously that match just took a little bit too much out of me. It was 75-80 minutes and it proved to be a little bit too far, with Camille being as fresh as she was.
“There are always fine lines. We’re both really professional, we both train hard and try to do the best that we can do.
“I’ve had the better of her in recent times, so this is fair play. She played a bit better than me today.”
[6] Camille Serme (Fra) 3-1 [3] Laura Massaro (Eng)
11-3, 11-5, 8-11, 11-8 (51m)
[1] Mohamed Elshorbagy (Egy) 3-2 [2] Gregory Gaultier (Fra)
11-9, 6-11, 5-11, 11-8, 11-5 (93m)