Semis: Gilis Through After Beating Watanabe

Belgium’s World No.14 Nele Gilis has reached her first Gold-level final since November 2023 after upsetting No.3 seed Satomi Watanabe at Alexandra Palace in today’s first semi-final match at the London Squash Classic presented by Bassim Haidar.

Gilis put in arguably her finest performance of 2025 to date as she emerged with an 11-7, 11-13, 11-2, 11-3 victory to reach her first PSA Squash Tour Final since the German Open in April of last year.

Gilis had won four of her five matches against Watanabe coming into today’s match, but it was the player from Japan who got the win last time out as she beat Gilis to win the 2024 Optasia Championships.

No.8 seed Gilis – who received a walkover into the last four after top seed Olivia Weaver withdrew from their quarter-final match was on it from the word go. She kept the ball deep in the back of the court, giving Watanabe very little opportunities to attack.

Watanabe’s best period of the match came in the second game as she took the game to her opponent, firing the ball in short and overturning a game ball to level things up.

That was as good as it got for the World No.6 though. Gilis refocused and dominated the third and fourth game, dropping just five further points to book her place in the title decider, going one better than her semi-final at last year’s London Classic.

“I’m ecstatic, I was so close to reaching the final last year, and I just missed out,” said Gilis afterwards.

“I couldn’t be happier to go one step further this year. I didn’t do much differently [in the last two games], I just stuck to my game plan and after the second I felt like i was playing well. I’m not quite sure what happened [in the second], I lost a little bit of accuracy and she was very good around the middle of the court, so I just stuck to my game plan and tried to do a little bit better.

“I was gutted that I couldn’t play [against Weaver] because I was really excited to. Me and Olivia always have great battles and it’s not nice to go through like that, but at the same time it was a great opportunity for me, it made me even more excited to play today. I wish Olivia a speedy recovery.

“I’m so determined [to win tomorrow]. I’ve been working so hard to get back to this stage and I will give it my all.”

Result

[8] Nele Gilis (BEL) bt [3] Satomi Watanabe (JPN) 3-1: 11-7, 11-13, 11-2, 11-3 (57m)

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