Egypt’s two-time World Junior Champion Amina Orfi made history in her first appearance at the U.S. Open Squash Championships presented by Truist, becoming the youngest player in tournament history to reach the quarterfinals with an upset over world No. 4 Joelle King Monday, October 9, at the Arlen Specter US Squash Center.
At sixteen years and three months old, Orfi surpasses Nour El Sherbini who previously reached the 2014 U.S. Open quarterfinals at eighteen. Orfi came back from losing the first game 13-11 against four seed King–who is more than twice her age at thirty-four–to win 11-7, 11-5, 11-4 in fifty-four minutes.
“I can’t believe it, I came into this match with no expectations,” said Orfi afterwards. “I learnt lessons in Paris and Qatar, I played point by point and the results just came. I had to take care of her experience, she’s been on court way more than me, so when she’s tired she knows how to manage the game very well. I had to play my best shots because when they were in the middle she put them away. I’m looking forward to a rest delay to relax, finally.”
Orfi will face Team USA’s Amanda Sobhy in the quarterfinals Wednesday after the American put in a clinical 3-0 performance against Egypt’s Zeina Mickawy.
The rest of the day’s results played out according to seeing with the top eight seeds all progressing to the first half of the quarterfinals on Wednesday. Colombia’s world No. 13 Miguel Rodriguez defeated world No. 12 Youssef Soliman in an entertaining five-game affair to close out the night.
Draws and match times are available on usopensquash.com/draws. Tickets are available on usopensquash.com/tickets. Squash fans around the world can watch the action live on squash.tv.
