Semi Finals Team Play

All of the teams are sorted into groups of 4 by the semi final day (1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16). Canada and New Zealand were playing on one side of the 5-8 seed of the draw and England and Malaysia on the other side.
Laura Gemmell played Lana Harrison of NZ in the first match and it was a hard hitting and hard running game. Lana hits the ball cleaner with more power than any junior woman in the tournament. She volleys extremely well and drives the opponent off the‘t’ very effectively. This strategy worked well for the first 2 games and Laura was down 2-0. Laura changed her game plan in the 3rd game and eventually it started to pay off. Slowly she won some points in the front of the court by stretching out Lana with excellent backhand boasts. This was a great mental and physical match for Laura and mentally exhausting for the players and the fans as Laura pulled it out in the 5th game 11-8.
Sam was up next and made quick work of her opponent 3-0 with some great drops and hard length. The 3rd match was played to give the players some more experience and Jenn Pelletier also won so Canada swept NZ 3-0. In the other semi events, England defeated Malaysia so this set up a Canada vs England 5th place match tomorrow (Saturday)
In the other semis (1-4 seeds), on one side, Egypt defeated USA 2-1. This was a surprise as everyone expected a 3-0 score. Amanada Sobhy won the point for the USA against the individual champion El Sherbini so this was a great match for Amanda. On the other side, India lost to Hong Kong 2-1. The Hong Kong team has no stars but they have 3 solid players of very equal ability. As a result they won the 2 and 3 matches after loosing the first one to Dipika. As a result, Hong Kong will play Egypt for the gold medal.