Day THREE – Finals
Sophie Fadaely [1] 3-0 Katie Wells [15] 11/5, 11/4, 11/8 (20m)
Sunday’s finals began with a women’s showpiece in which Sophie Fadaely cruised to victory in 20 minutes. She won the first two sets particularly comfortably, with Wells saving a few gameballs on the backhand to avoid an even wider margin of defeat in the second set than the final result shows.
Last year’s runner-up did come into the match more in a competitive third set in which the players remained within a point or two of each other to 7/7. As each passing point became more critical, it was reflected in the players’ reactions. Wells let out a roar of frustration as Fadaely went 8/7 up, and Fadaely did the same when the score was levelled at 8/8. In such a game of tight margins,
Fadaely benefitted from a nick to go 9/8 and apologised to her opponent (because we’ve all been on the wrong end of one at a crucial moment before). The Australian won the subsequent two points, sealing the 2024 women’s title with a tight backhand drop shot on her first matchball.
Bailey Malik [9/16] 3-1 Rory Richmond [8] 7/11, 11/8, 11/9, 11/5 (46m)
At last year’s Boston Open, Scotland’s Rory Richmond beat Bailey Malik in straight sets in the quarter-finals. This time around, they faced each other two rounds further on with a very different end result. Richmond took the first set (despite losing an exhaustingly long rally when he tinned a boast), winning it 11/7 after Malik saved three gameballs.
Malik responded emphatically by not only winning the second set, but racing into a 5/1 lead in the third. While Richmond came back to go 7/5 up, Malik managed to reverse his opponent’s momentum to win the game 11/9, leaving Richmond with his head in his hands as he dropped his racket in a mixture of disbelief and disappointment.
Malik kept up the intensity to take a 10/4 lead in the fourth set and while Richmond saved one gameball, the match was already beyond him. Malik won the final with a tight boast, going one better than his brother Heston’s runner-up finish last year and bringing the 27th annual Boston Open to its conclusion.
Day TWO : A busy day in Boston with quarter-and semi-finals …
WOMEN’S QUARTER-FINALS
Sophie Fadaely [1] 3-1 Ellie Breach [14] 11/9, 7/11, 11/8, 11/4 (45m)
Jasmin Kalar [7] 3-0 Ayumi Watanabe [12] 11/6, 11/0, 11/8 (20m)
Katie Wells [15] 3-1 Carys Jones [5] 13/11, 7/11, 11/8, 11/3 (39m)
Polly Clark [3] 3-2 Lara Newton [8] 7/11, 12/14, 11/3, 11/9, 11/7 (42m)
Katie Wells continued her pursuit of a second consecutive Boston Open final with victory over 5th seed Carys Jones. It was Jasmin Kalar who had the most comfortable victory of the round though, with top seed Sophie Fadaely dropping one set and third seed Polly Clark having to mount a comeback from 2-0 down after losing an incredibly tight second set on a tiebreak.
MEN’S QUARTER-FINALS
Jack Mitterer [9/16] 3-1 Joel Arscott [1] 9/11, 11/5, 11/7, 11/3 (53m)
Rory Richmond [8] 3-1 David Turner [3] 8/11, 11/8, 11/8, 11/4 (N/A)
Lewis Poole 3-1 Ioan Sharpe [9/16] 4/11, 11/4, 11/4, 11/3 (33m)
Bailey Malik [9/16] 3-3 Will Salter [2 ] 5/11, 8/11, 11/8, 11/2, 12/10 (88m)
It’s tough at the top. The top three men’s seeds all fell one by one as every men’s quarter-final went against seeding. The tone was set by Jack Mitterer’s defeat of world top 200 player Joel Arscott despite having trailed 1-0 to the #1 seed. Rory Richmond also turned around a 1-0 deficit to win in four, while the unseeded Lewis Poole continued his impressive form against 9/16 seed Ioan Sharpe.
The last match was an epic 88-minute thriller in which Bailey Malik came from 2-0 down to beat Will Salter. Salter appeared to tire in the third game and was consistently the more likely of the pair to make an error in pursuit of a winning shot, and the fourth game was a write-off for the second seed.
The deciding fifth set could not have been much more tense. Salter won the first matchball, but Malik levelled at 10/10. One let was followed by another after the referee called one of Salter’s shots not up before reflecting on the decision on Salter’s prompting and changing his mind. Malik responded by sinking to his knees in a praying position and joking, “Please give me the match!” In the end, Malik earned it 12/10 as two more of Salter’s shots were called not up – bringing the 2024 quarter-finals to a close two hours later than expected.
WOMEN’S SEMI-FINALS
Sophie Fadaely [1] 3-0 Polly Clark [3] 12/10, 11/7, 11/1 (25m)
Katie Wells [15] 3-0 Jasmin Kalar [7] 11/9, 11/5, 11/7 (22m)
There wasn’t long to wait between the end of the men’s quarters and the women’s semis. Sophie Fadaely avoided the same fate as her top seeded counterparts in the men’s event. She won four consecutive rallies to come from 10/8 down to win the first set, and never looked back from there. Katie Wells also sailed into the final in straight sets.
MEN’S SEMI-FINALS
Rory Richmond [8] 3-2 Jack Mitterer [9/16] 11/9, 9/11, 1/11, 11/8, 3/2 rtd (61m)
Bailey Malik [9/16] 3-2 Lewis Poole 8/11, 11/6, 9/11, 11/4, 11/6 (48m)
It was a shame that the first men’s semi-final ended in the way it did. Having knocked out the top seed in the quarters, Jack Mitterer was as much in the match as his opponent Rory Richmond when he went down with cramp at the end of fourth set. His attempt to play the fifth set was short-lived, and he pulled up again at 3/2 down in the final game, handing victory to Richmond. The semis ended in the same way as the quarters did – with Bailey Malik securing a five-set victory. He will now compete in the final of the Boston Open 2024, one year after the final appearance of his brother Heston – who he knocked out in this year’s round of 16.
