She made it through to the main draw but it proved a match to far for our rising squash star Siyoli Waters on Wednesday.
Waters (nee Lusaseni) won two tough qualifiers in the run-up to the Hong Kong Cup where she came up against England’s Lauren Siddall in the first round of the main draw.
Siddall is ranked 39th in the world and sixth for the tournament and her experience proved too much for the Capetonian as she won 3-0 (11-4 11-6 11-7).
“It just wasn’t my day,” said Waters. “She took control of the match from the start, and whatever I tried, I just couldn’t penetrate her game plan. Lauren also played in India and we have been training together for the last two weeks. Therefore, she knows my game inside out. Of all the seeds to be drawn against, I was quite sad it was her.
“The game started off at a very high pace, which we both seemed to be comfortable at, until we gave away a weak length, and one of us would put it away. My length ran into a bit of trouble because of the walls.
“Here, the walls are such that if the ball touches the side wall, it looses speed instantly, and bounces away from the wall. This meant that the ball didn’t reach the back as I wanted, but instead was set up for her to kill it off. I got really frustrated and instead of slowing things down, I just went faster, which left me more vulnerable to attack because I ended up being a reactive player instead of executing my game plan.
“But three cheers to her for keeping it together and closing the game off as a winner in three sets. I’ll keep watching the top players and see what I can learn. It would be good to get on court with them as well, as I’m sure I’ll run into them in a tournament in the not-too-distant future.”
Waters now returns home to Cape Town where she’ll prepare for her next foray onto the international circuit.
Article Source: http://www.sascoc.co.za/
