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TODAY
at the ROWE British Grand Prix:
Sat 24th, Day SIX
Steve Cubbins at the NSC, Fram in France |
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En Bref #5:
Catching up with Greg ...
Photo Galleries |
Semi-Finals:
[2] Ramy Ashour (Egy) bt [3] Karim Darwish (Egy)
11/7, 5/11, 11/2, 11/5 (54m)
[1] Nick Matthew (Eng) bt [5] Amr Shabana (Egy)
11/8, 11/4, 6/11, 11/3 (54m)
Preview: Matthew sets
sights on Final
Top two set up dream final in Manchester
Top seed Nick Matthew and defending champion Ramy
Ashour set up a dream ROWE British Grand Prix final as they
both won their semi-finals - both against Egyptian opposition,
both 3/1 and both in 54 minutes ...
There were some minor differences of course, read on for the
details ...
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[2] Ramy Ashour
(Egy) bt [3] Karim Darwish (Egy)
11/7, 5/11, 11/2, 11/5 (54m)
Ramy back in
BGP final
 The
last time these two played on this court was in the World Open
final in 2008. The result that time was 3/1 to Ramy Ashour, and
although Karim Darwish once again took a game, that was all he
was allowed.
It wasn't the sort of frantic match that Ashour can sometimes
get his opponents into, Darwish is too experienced, too clever,
too controlled to allow that.
Darwish kept the first game tight until the mid-point, but
Ashour pulled clear from 5-4, taking a 9/4 lead before finishing
it off 11/7. He started the second well too, leading 3/0 and
4/1, but now it was Darwish's turn to dominate as Ashour's
concentration lapsed. Seven points out of eight and Darwish led
8/4, soon to be 11/5 and one game all.
Another swing of fortunes from the start of the third, which
Ashour dominated after losing the first two points - eleven in a
row and in just five minutes and a barrage of winners he had
regained the lead.
He wasn't as dominant in the fourth, but once he had established
a 6/3 lead the result never looked in doubt, and soon enough he
had taken the game 11/5, was back in the final with his unbeaten
record on this court intact.
"I'm happy with
how I played.
 "you
can never afford to mess around with Karim, he's a very powerful
player and has such great winning shots, especially on the
forehand, you have to be alert and wary all the time and stay
with his pace.
"He gets confident very quickly if you let him get on top of you
and he can overrun you very quickly.
"I often have to dive to get his shots, and if you get it you
just have to see what happens next, but the more I do it the
better I get at it!
 "You
always play in patches, he was better in the second game and I
wasn't playing with my head. You have to try to put all those
scrappy thoughts out of your head, put them in order before it's
too late, which I managed to do for the third.
"I'm glad to make the final here again, this court never let me
down yet so I hope it can continue like that tomorrow ..."
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[1] Nick
Matthew (Eng) bt [5] Amr Shabana (Egy)
11/8, 11/4, 6/11, 11/3 (54m)
No stopping Nick
"He's not playing bad for someone who's not played for six
months, is he," Nick Matthew asked, rhetorically of course, at
the end of his semi-final with Amr Shabana.
 Yes,
the Englishman won, as most expected, but the four-time world
champion Egyptian showed the current holder of that title and
the sellout crowd at the National Squash Centre that he still
has what it takes.
It was an even opening to the match, Matthew went from 3/2 to
6/3, Shabana pulled it back to lead 7/6, but Matthew held fast,
and after getting the better of one of those brutal, brutal
rallies that he so enjoys and his opponents so hate to go 10/7
up, he took the game 11/7.
The 8th point Shabana won in the first was from a winning return
of serve, and he may well have still been feeling the effects of
that rally into the second game. Matthew was soon ahead, 3/1,
7/3, and with Shabana increasingly going for the risky option,
the game was secured 11/4 and a three-nil looked the most likely
option.
 You
can never count Shabana out though, and he came out renewed in
the third, started dominating some of the front-court rallies,
opened up a 6/2 lead and, after a couple of incidents where
no-one - players and referees - knew quite what had happened in
fast exchanges at the front, he pulled a game back, 11/6.
"You can see that Shabana believes he can win this," we heard
Joey Barrington say from the commentary booth (he can be quite
loud at times), and Shabana surely did, too, as they traded
blows at the start of the fourth up to 3-all.
Whether he still believed after another of those brutal rallies
which Matthew won, inevitably, was a different matter. Matthew,
buoyed, advanced to 7/3, won another tough rally, and carried on
in typical steamroller fashion to take the game 11/3 and advance
to the final.
 "You
couldn't wish for a greater contrast in styles, but hopefully it
makes for a great game, every rally is brutal and you can never
relax at all.
"I coped with his game well in the first two but he came out in
the third and upped what was already a high pace and he got me
involved in a few too many exchanges at the front.
"I can get a bit excitable in between games, but DP [David
Pearson] is great, he calmed me don and told me that my basic
game was working well, to stick to it and trust it.
 "In
the fourth I came out and tried to extend the rallies more, not
being negative but trying to keep out of those counter drop
exchanges if I could. I was concentrating so much, it came as a
bit of a surprise when the ref said I was 8/3 up!
"Ramy's got the better of me the twice we've played this season,
but I've looked at what he did to me and worked on a few things.
Whether that translates into a better performance and a win
we'll have to wait and see ..."
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England's
world number one Nick Matthew will be looking for his
tenth career win over Egypt's Amr Shabana when he takes
on the four-time world champion in today's semi-finals of the
ROWE British Grand Prix Squash Championship in Manchester.
"His
record speaks for itself: You don't win four world titles
without having something special," added the 31-year-old from
Sheffield.
