Kiwi Coll Fightback Delights NZ Home Crowd

Defending champion Paul Coll will contest another New Zealand Open final after the Kiwi former world No.1 struck back from a game down to beat Baptiste Masotti to set up a championship rematch with England's Marwan ElShorbagy at the Isaac Theatre Royal in Christchurch.

The women's final, meanwhile, will feature Egyptian 17-year-old Amina Orfi and Japan No.1 Satomi Watanabe after they defeated Rowan Elaraby and Salma Hany.

New Zealand No.1 Coll, who spent his junior years in Christchurch, had some alarm bells ringing in the 1000-strong partisan crowd as the top seed dropped the first game 9-11 to his French opponent.

To the relief of his fans, Coll rectified the situation, looking more relaxed as he drew level with an 11-7 win in game two and then moved ahead 11-6 in game three.

With momentum fully behind him now, the Greymouth native charged out in game four, taking the first three points of the game. Masotti, a popular pantomime villain with the home crowd, bravely battled back, but came up just short as Coll returned to the championship match with an 11-9 victory in game four.

Afterwards, Coll said: "I came out relaxed all week and I was just trying to enjoy it, it's the most incredible place I've played and to have over 1,000 people here I can't believe it."

Standing between Coll and silverware is No.2 seed Marwan ElShorbagy. The Englishman has unfinished business in New Zealand after a 3/0 defeat to Coll at the last edition and on today's performance will prove a real threat to the Kiwi, with ElShorbagy crushing No.3 seed Eain Yow Ng of Malaysia.

The women's final, meanwhile, promises to be an intriguing clash as No.2 seed Amina Orfi and No.6 seed Satomi Watanabe meet for the third time this season, with Watanabe dishing out defeats to Orfi in the semi-finals stage of the Silicon Valley Open and Squash in the Land.

Both will take confidence from impressive performances tonight. In the first semi-final, Watanabe powered past Egyptian No.7 seed Salma Hany.

Hany, who stunned top seed Tinne Gilis yesterday after coming back from 0/2 down, could not perform another great escape today as the power-hitting Japan No.1 recorded an 11-4, 12-10, 6-11, 11-5 win in 53 minutes.

Orfi, meanwhile, was at her ice-cold best in a straight games win over Egypt national teammate Rowan Elaraby.

After being second best in the early stages of game one, the reigning junior world champion proved too much to handle for Elaraby, with Orfi saving two game balls in the opener to take a 12-10 win, which she followed up with another win by the same scoreline in game two and then a comprehensive 11-2 win in game three.