In her sixth meeting with Linda Elriani, Nicol David gave the local crowd something to cheer about when she chalked up her first ever victory over the 33-year old English woman after six meetings, the first one being at the Seattle Open back in 2001 and most recently, losing in straight games at this year’s Qatar Airways Challenge. Having played rather sluggishly the past two days, many didnlt give David much of a chance.

In a game lasting 46 minutes, David took the tight first game 9-5 after some great squash by both players. Elriani, with far more experience on the tour then came back strongly with the second game, dropping only 3 points. Elriani’s power play was just too much for David to handle. After the break, David came back with a vengeance, dropping one point less than Elriani in the opening game.

 The fourth game was a rather close affair with both players being neck to neck most of the time. The local crowd was behind David all the time and gave her a psychological boost, enough to pull of her first win over Elriani and a date with Atkinson tomorrow evening for a repeat of the MAS KL Open.

 Shelley Kitchen, conqueror of world number six Fiona Geeves yesterday, today hoped to go a step further. However, the red topped Atkinson had other ideas. The first game seemed to belong to Kitchen, who had a huge lead before Atkinson started pulling back, but it was just not enough to halt Kitchen. In the second, Atkinson played a much more patient game and was constantly wrong footing the Kiwi with her flicks. Ten minutes and it was one game a piece.