Just two weeks after winning the U.S. Junior Open U19 championship, American Amanda Sobhy, the Women’s World Junior Champion, coasted through to the British Junior Open Women’s U19 final without dropping a game. The top seed’s opponent was Egyptian rival Nour El Tayeb, the No. 2 seed who lost to Sobhy in June’s world final in Germany.
But it was El Tayeb who edged to victory—including a dramatic fight-back in the second game when Sobhy jumped out to a 10-4 lead—recording her fourth successive Sheffield win over the 17-year-old from New York 11-6, 12-10, 11-7 in just 28 minutes. The triumph marks 17-year-old El Tayeb’s fifth British Junior Open title since 2005, and completes her set of U13, U15, U17 and U19 trophies.
El Tayeb and Sobhy have a developing rivalry that is also taking shape on the WISPA tour as both are ranked in the world’s top-25 (El Tayeb at No. 17 and Sobhy at No. 24), but with Sobhy holding a slight edge on the WISPA “Rising Star” rankings, currently sitting at No. 2 behind India’s Dipika Pallikal and El Tayeb at No. 3.