{"id":5989,"date":"2025-11-14T07:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T00:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=5989"},"modified":"2025-11-14T07:02:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T00:02:20","slug":"struggling-watanabe-rediscovers-best-squash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/struggling-watanabe-rediscovers-best-squash\/","title":{"rendered":"“Struggling” Watanabe rediscovers best squash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Japan’s World No.7 Satomi Watanabe rediscovered both her best squash and enjoyment for the game in a commanding victory over World No.15 Sana Ibrahim to reach the last four of the China Open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watanabe has struggled with injuries and confidence in the first half of the 25\/26 season, often looking a shadow of the player who last season became the first ever Japanese player to qualify for the PSA Squash Tour finals, where she reached the semi-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last night, though, the 26-year-old found the sure touch that has been missing in previous months, playing some spectacular squash in Shanghai to overcome the in-form Ibrahim 11-9, 11-8, 11-4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterwards, Watanabe was candid as she reflected on her form:  “I’ve been struggling since the summer with my injury and I’ve been really, really struggling to find my squash until today and still going onto court today and doubting myself a little bit whether I can perform well or even be able to play squash in an enjoyable way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Today I felt like how I used to play last season.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watanabe will face Hania El Hammamy in the semi-finals on November 15th. The Egyptian, who will rise to World No.1 on Monday 17th November, swatted aside defending champion Rachel Arnold of Malaysia in a convincing performance that moved her to within two victories of a fourth consecutive title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Hania El Hammamy (Photo PSA)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

In the the men’s event, only one match took place due to a pre-match injury to World No.1 Mostafa Asal, with No.3 seed Marwan ElShorbagy getting the better of rising star Kareem El Torkey in an entertaining and at times tense clash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ElShorbagy, who survived an epic five gamer with Gregoire Marche in the RO16, looked strong early on as he took the game to El Torkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The young Egyptian rallied in game two, though, upping the pace and firing past a seemingly tiring ElShorbagy to level 11-5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From here, ElShorbagy’s tactical acumen came to the fore, managing \u2013 at at times frustrating \u2013 his younger opponent, with the Englishman re-establishing his dominance of game one with 11-8, 11-7 wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterwards, ElShorbagy said: “Kareem reminds me of myself a little bit at the beginning when I was coming up, everything was exciting for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He’s coming up very fast and is one of the nicest guys on tour and I really want to see him doing well and get into the top 10 and top five and I think he’s got a great potential.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women’s Quarter-Finals<\/strong>: [1] Hania El Hammamy (EGY) bt. Rachel Arnold (MAS) 3-1: 11-7, 11-1, 6-11, 11-6 (37m); [4] Satomi Watanabe (JPN) bt. [8] Sana Ibrahim (EGY) 3-0: 11-9, 11-8, 11-4 (34m)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Men’s Quarter-Finals: <\/strong>Mohamed Abouelghar [EGY] w\/o [1] Mostafa Asal [EGY]; [3] Marwan ElShorbagy (ENG) bt. Kareem El Torkey (EGY) 3-1: 11-6, 5-11, 11-8, 11-7 (44m)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japan’s World No.7 Satomi Watanabe rediscovered both her best squash and enjoyment for the game in a commanding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-5989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-squash"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Satomi-Watanabe_compressed-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Satomi-Watanabe_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Satomi-Watanabe_compressed-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Satomi-Watanabe_compressed-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Satomi-Watanabe_compressed-1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Satomi-Watanabe_compressed-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Satomi-Watanabe_compressed-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Satomi-Watanabe_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Satomi-Watanabe_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Satomi-Watanabe_compressed-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5992,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5989\/revisions\/5992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}