The Final

[2] Omar Mosaad (Egy) bt [3] Shahier Razik (Can)
         11/7, 4/11, 11/4, 11/9 (67m)

Omar holds firm for biggest win

"It's going to be a tough sleep tonight," were the last words of Shahier Razik's post-final interview, and with good reason.

The Canadian third seed lost out in four games to Omar Masaad, but the Egyptian was forced to come from behind in two of games he won, from 2/5, in the first and, most hurtingly for Razik, from 3/8 in the fourth.

The crashing winners that were so destructive in Mosaad's semi-final were much less in evidence tonight. After Shahier's early lead in the first Omar was willing to rally it out more than is probably his wont.

But Shahier's defence is so good, he was able to neutralise most of Omar's attacks, forcing a more defensive mode of play from his opponent. Omar moves well for such a big guy though, and he's more than comfortable playing that sort of games, even if he does prefer crashing in those winners.

Not that they weren't mixing it up, not at all. Both were willing to play boasts, drops and counter drops to move the other around, although to be fair Shahier played them with less expectation of them being outright winners than did Omar.

Long story short, Omar recovered well to take the first, Shahier was in control early in the second and at 4/9 Omar let the game go, Omar was well on top in the third as he regained the advantage.

The fourth looked to be going Shahier's way as, aided and abetted by four uncharacteristic tins from Omar, he established leads of 5/1 and 8/3.

The Egyptian cut out the errors, started to claw his way back, and now Shahier seemed to go on the defensive, putting the ball short only when he had to. The rallies became longer, and Omar hit those crashing winners to finish three of them as he recovered to 8-all.

Four long rallies, four lets, Shahier took one more point but the last word was Omar's as he took the last three, finishing with a crosscourt drive that left Shahier diving across the court in vain.



Shahier will know he could, perhaps should, have won it, but it's Omar who walks away with the biggest tournament win of his career, and well deserved too - as Stefan Casteleyn said in his introductions, "he's obviously the best player in the tournament, he beat me!"

"It was a good match, Shahier's a good player, very experienced, and he played well to beat Tarek yesterday so I knew it would be tough and this morning I thought about what I would do in this match.

"First game he started well, fast game, but after half a game I started to play well and took the game. Second, he played well and my mind wandered, he won it. Third, I tried hard to take the game, I knew it would be a big advantage to be 2/1 up, so I tried to make it hard for him and won it.

""Fourth, I started badly, I was thinking about how winning this game would mean winning the tournament. I came back, hitting the ball well and not making any mistakes and made it 8-all. He won one point but I won three in one hand to win the tournament.

"It's the biggest win of my career, the most points, I'm very happy to win this tournament.

"I'd like to thank Dafrawy my fitness coach and Mohamed Mosad my squash coach. And thanks of course to the sponsors and organisers, especially Stefan he's done a great job."

Extras #5
How the other half trains

"I blew it.

"I was feeling comfortable at the start, then he steadied and started pounding the hell out of the ball. I felt I was playing tennis at times, it was bouncing so high, I was really struggling to control the ball.

"It got a bit tense in the fourth, and at 8-all it was anyone's ... it's going to be a tough sleep tonight ..."