Brown reaches Dayton final

21-Feb-2010 - Squash Australia

New South Wales’s Kasey Brown turned in an impressive performance as she downed powerful Kiwi Joelle King in straight games to reach the final of the Dayton Open women’s squash tournament in Ohio on Saturday.
Brown, the world number 12, gained some revenge for her semi-final loss to King at the 2009 Australian Open by beating the 22-year-old New Zealander 14-12, 11-5, 11-7.
She will now play Sarah Kippax in the decider after the third seeded Englishwoman saw off local hope Olivia Blatchford 11-6, 12-10, 11-9 in the second semi-final.
It is Brown’s 18th final on the women’s professional tour but her first since she finished runner up at the 2008 Australian Open.
She won the last of her nine titles in Hong Kong in May 2008, but since then she has consistently been ranked in the top 15 and as a result has played the top tier tournaments, where she regularly comes up against the world’s best players in the quarter or semi-finals.
Brown has beaten Kippax in both their previous meetings, the most recent in the first round of the 2009 Hong Kong Open.

Semi-final results – prefix denotes seeding:

1-Kasey Brown (AUS) bt 5-Joelle King (NZL) 14-12, 11-5, 11-7
3-Sarah Kippax (ENG) bt Olivia Blatchford (USA) 11-6, 12-10, 11-9