MALAYSIAN world champion and world number one Nicol David recorded her 35th consecutive win and collected her 7th Hong Kong title in a row. For James Willstrop it was a first final and a first title as he became the first Englishman to lift the trophy of one of the squash world's longest running and most prestigious tournaments in almost a decade. In the final, David beat Egyptian Raneem El-Weleili 11/5, 11/4, 11/9. Willstrop beat Egyptian Karim Darwish 11/5, 11/9, 11/4. It was a tough task for 10th seed El-Weleili to put an end to David's 34-match unbeaten streak in Hong Kong, and for two games in the first final of the evening at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre it looked as though the pressure had got to her. David took a 4/1 lead in the first, and although the Egyptian levelled, it was only a temporary respite as David raced through to take the lead 11/5. There was a 4/1 lead in the second, but this time the mini-comeback only got as far as 6/3 before David doubled her advantage 11/4. David did not need to do anything special; just be her usual steady, speedy self. El-Weleili did not help her cause with a few typically casual errors. David was naturally delighted with a seventh success at a venue which really started it all with her first World Open win in 2005. Willstrop became the first English winner of the Hong Kong Open since Peter Nicol in 2002 (and before that it was Phil Kenyon in 1985) when he produced a performance uncannily similar to his defeat of four-time runner-up Gregory Gaultier in these semi-finals. His opponent, Egypt's second seed Karim Darwish, had unlike Gaultier come through the earlier rounds with something to spare, but it was the Englishman who once again took the first game, then held firm at the end of a particularly tough second. And that was pretty much that as Darwish was unable or unwilling to contemplate coming from two games down as he subsided in the third, picked up some consolation points after going 9/1 down but never looking like completing a comeback.
