World No.1 Spot Up For Grabs After Fiery Hong Kong Semi

Egyptian duo Nouran Gohar and Nour El Sherbini will fight it out for the world No.1 ranking in the women's final of the Milwaukee Hong Kong Open after world No.2 Gohar downed fierce rival and defending champion Hania El Hammamy in a bad-tempered clash and world No.1 El Sherbini moved past world No.4 Olivia Weaver after the American retired hurt part way through their match.

The men's final will also be an all-Egyptian affair, contested by Ali Farag and Mostafa Asal, with Farag aiming to win the only major event of the current era that has so far eluded his grasp.

Gohar and El Hammamy have never been close friends on court, but today was a particularly fractious affair as the pair fought frequently in a match dominated as much by collisions and two blood injury breaks as by the squash on show.

Despite Gohar at times losing her temper - including one particularly heated exchange with referee Roy Gingell in which Gohar shouted 'She's going to injure me!' - the reigning world champion never lost her accuracy, and was eventually rewarded with an 11-8, 6-11, 11-8, 11-8 win in 71 minutes.

A win for Gohar against El Sherbini in tomorrow's final would see 'The Terminator' leapfrog her compatriot to world No.1, with El Sherbini's semi-final against Weaver ending in the second game after the US No.1 pulled up with an injury to her back.

"I didn't really keep [my composure!]," Gohar admitted afterwards.

"But thanks to Roy, who told me to take a minute, it really helped. Sorry, Roy!

"Hopefully after winning, going back to world No.1 is a bonus that I'd be happy to take. If I think about it the other way round, it's just going to be unnecessary pressure."

Of her match, El Sherbini said: "It's tough, but [Weaver] has to listen to her body. That's the main, most important thing. Hopefully it's not bad. I thought it was a really good match we were playing."

The men's final is another all-Egyptian affair after Farag fought back from a game down to beat reigning world champion Diego Elias and Asal crushed Welshman Joel Makin, who had knocked out last year's champion Paul Coll of New Zealand in the quarter-final.

Two weeks ago, Farag fought back from two games down to defeat Elias in the final of the Singapore Open, and it was the Peruvian who made the better start again today, with the world No.3 building an 8-2 lead en-route to an 11-9 win in the first game.

Farag had closed the gap considerable at the tail end of the opener and carried that momentum through, taking game two 11-7, game three 11-3 and game four 11-8 in a high-quality encounter.

"I needed to find that spark again," Farag said afterwards, reflecting on a defeat to Elias at the Qatar Classic earlier this year.

"I've come so close [to winning the Hong Kong Open] three times."

Asal, meanwhile, ran rampant against Makin, putting the Welshman to the sword 11-8, 11-3, 11-2.

"Playing with Ali is such a joy and I'm always happy to be sharing a court with him," Asal said.

"We're having a final against each other and then straight away we switch our heads to be one team for Egypt [during the World Squash Team Championships, which take place at Hong Kong Football Club 9-15 December]. It's a hard feeling but we'll be giving it our best and it's going to be a good squash match tomorrow."