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In the final twelve months earlier, Grinham had come back from two games down to win 10-8 in the fifth. Could history be about to be repeated? Grinham took a 7-2 lead, at which point errors began to flow from the Egyptian's racket. When the Australian took the third game, after a stroke against Kawy, the fans were quietened - until the interval music brought the crowd onto their feet and back in festival mode!

The fourth game mirrored the early stages of the third. The usual blend of Grinham lobs, holds, gut-wrenching boasts and a few other speciality moves took her all the way to 9-0 in a mere seven minutes.

Each point Kawy won in the decider sent the crowd chanting 'Omneya, Omneya …'. The chants became more overpowering as Kawy extended a 4-2 lead to 8-2, and match-ball – by which time few in the audience were sitting. Grinham hit a return out over the front wall and all order disappeared in an outpouring of sheer joy. Their Egyptian darling had done it at last – in a stunning 9-6, 9-2, 7-9, 0-9, 9-2 victory in 75 minutes.

Acknowledging her family and the whole crowd, Abdel Kawy had a smile as wide as the Nile as she received the trophy from Hassan Sakr, President of Egypt's National Council of Sport.

As the happy crowd slowly ebbed away, Abdel Kawy admitted that it had not been easy: "I put a lot of pressure on myself when I was 2/0 up and I played badly at the start of the third. I got better but it is too late to improve when Rachael is already winning. Then in the fourth I wasn't there, but thank God in the fifth I played good," she said.

"I guess I am a famous person in Egypt now!” she said, only half joking. “The crowd were so happy to have an Egyptian winner and I think that Rachael was a little shocked by them and I took advantage at the start. Then they helped me to come back in the fifth."

Grinham, based in Cairo, will return to the capital - doubtless reflecting on what went wrong as she crosses the desert on the five-hour run by car. “I felt good after last night and played okay generally but I wasn't quite good enough.

“The crowd were behind her but it didn't affect me. It was strange because the game was very up and down and it was difficult to really get a rhythm."

Grinham & Kawy Celebrate Hurghada Final Hat-Trick

Australia's Rachael Grinham and Egypt's Omneya Abdel Kawy will face each other in the final of the Women's Hurghada Squash International for the third successive year after surviving lengthy and testing semi-finals on the all-glass court on the main promenade of the Red Sea resort of Hurghada in Egypt.

Top seed Grinham, the defending champion looking for her third title in a row, suffered a slow start in her match against rising Egypt star Engy Kheirallah, the 24-year-old from Alexandria who burst into the world's top twenty in December last year. Indeed Kheirallah, who beat the former world number one in an invitation tournament at Gezira in Cairo only a month ago, raced to a 6-0 lead in the opening game.

After reaching game ball at 8-5, Kheirallah seemed to lose a little of her purpose and allowed the elfin-like Australian to clamber back to eight-all and then take the game with a rasping forehand drive that the Egyptian could only wave on its way.

From then on, the momentum was with Grinham, and despite her opponent's well known stubbornness the remainder of the match was straightforward – and, after 56 minutes, Grinham clinched her 10-8, 9-2, 9-3 victory.

Kheirallah has shown sustained improvement this year, something she puts down to playing more with men. “I used to have a very soft game but I have been trying to harden it and be more attacking,” said the Egyptian No2.

Afterwards the winner acknowledged the importance of the first game: “It made a huge difference winning it,” said Grinham, the 29-year-old from Queensland celebrating her 34^th appearance in a WISPA World Tour final. "I was aware that if she took it her confidence would grow. I knew that she has been playing well, probably top ten standard, so I needed to get ahead of her mentally. She started so sharply that I was hanging on. I wasn't doing anything wrong in the first, but snatching it gave me the initiative."

When told that Grinham had suggested that she is already playing to world top ten standard, Kheirallah pinpointed the position as her target for the end of the year – as well as to be part of an Egyptian team that could do better than their best ever fourth spot in the Women's World Teams.

It turned out to be a disappointing evening for Alexandrians when eighth seed Raneem El Weleily, the 17-year-old world junior champion who hails from the same Mediterranean city as Kheirallah, went down 8-10, 9-6, 9-0, 9-10, 9-1 to second seed Omneya Abdel Kawy.

Kawy settled first and reached 6-1 in the opening game – but El Weleily fought back to take a one-game lead. The second was close until the latter stages when El Weleily faltered by losing her shape – and in the third, the teenager peppered the tin to lose it 9-0 in a mere five minutes.

She continued in this vein until she was 7-0 down in the fourth - thus two points away from defeat. At which point El Weleily began to play constructive squash again – which led to taking the game and drawing level.

But it was the more experienced Kawy – albeit only three years older at 20 - who had the upper hand in the decider to clinch victory after 65 minutes.

El Weleily gathered up her bag and rushed from the court, distressed by the defeat. Meanwhile, the winner was basking in the adulation of the crowd that were chanting her name.

Some of this was clearly relief, as Kawy – now in her 12^th WISPA final - explained: "I was so scared because Raneem is very good, so fit and so young."