Massaro And Gaultier Are PSA Dubai World Series Finals Champions by Nathan Clarke photos PSA
May 28, 2016
- England's Laura Massaro and Frenchman Gregory Gaultier reigned
supreme during the final night of action at the PSA Dubai World Series
Finals, defeating Raneem El Welily and Cameron Pilley, respectively, to
take the honours and bring the lucrative week-long season-ending
tournament to a close in Dubai.
Competing in the shadow of
the Burj Khalifa - the world's tallest building - Massaro twice game
from a game down to defeat El Welily in a thrilling 62-minute encounter
that saw her collect the biggest prize in the history of women's squash
- with the $42,750 purse equal to that collected by Gaultier - just
three weeks after losing in the final of the PSA Women's World
Championship.
"I’m so pleased with my form all week," said Massaro.
"It
was really tough coming off the back of a loss at the World
Championship, and it was a big effort to keep training after that. I’m
just so pleased that it’s paid off - you go through so much pain and
hard work as a squash player. Moments like this make it all worth it.
"I
told myself it was the final match of the season, and coming on for
that fifth game I just told myself there was one game to go and I'm so
pleased to come through in the end. To have equal prize money for the
women and to be on an level par with the men in these big events now,
the women feel like we deserve it, and I hope that today showed that we
do."
Meanwhile Gaultier, winner of the 2008 and 2009
iterations of the tournament, saw off the challenge of surprise
finalist Cameron Pilley in a commanding 3-1 victory that sees him end
the season on the highest note possible - just four months after
suffering a horrific ankle injury that threatened to keep him away from
the game for an extended period of time.
"I started the
season in a great dynamic winning events such as the U.S. Open and
World Championship and was the maybe best player on Tour before the
nightmare hit with injury in January," said Gaultier.
"I had
a few months where I didn't even hit a squash ball until the British
Open and it was only in El Gouna that I felt I was getting back into
it. This week I was able to play without tape and move fluently for the
first time and to end this half of the year with this title is a really
positive note for me and something I'm really pleased with."
Results: PSA Dubai World Series Finals - Final:
Women's Final [1] Laura Massaro (ENG) bt [4] Raneem El Welily (EGY) 3-2: 9-11, 11-6, 5-11, 12-10, 11-5 (62m)
