Final:
Willstrop breaks an
Egyptian monopoly
Richard Eaton
 James
Willstrop broke the Egyptian monopoly on success in Kuwait City
and captured the biggest title of his career when he won the
Kuwait PSA Cup with another intelligent and economical
performance suggesting he is in the best form of his life.
The Englishman’s 11-7, 10-12, 11-4, 11-2 win in the final over
Karim Darwish, the former world number one from Egypt, earned
him back-to-back World Series titles and made it likely that he
will equal his career highest ranking of world number two next
month.
Willstrop is now the only player to have won more the one World
Series title this year apart from Ramy Ashour, the previous
winner of the title here, who may be out for the rest of the
season with a hamstring injury.
“It’s not like it’s come out of the blue,” said Willstrop who
won the title on Hong Kong nine days ago. “It was certainly good
to pick up a win last week, and yes, I just feel good.
“You go through with the ups and the downs of so often. It
happens almost week on week at the moment. You could be up and
you are flying. Or it could be a less good week.
“You just have to keep battling away and keep learning as much
as you can. And just focusing on each little section, each
tournament at a time.”
In fact there haven’t mean any ups and downs at all for
Willstrop for quite a while. He had not dropped a game in two
tournaments, winning 28 in a row, until Darwish sneaked the
second game in the final.
Otherwise he has worked his way to relentless successes with the
help of a rhythmic, less flamboyant attack than he once had,
applying pressure with fewer risks, and closing out matches with
a sharp eye for when the moment came for that extra telling
pressure.
The match had a bitty start, with 16 lets in the first 24
rallies. An extended roof had been placed over the arena to deal
with the forecast threat of possible rain and high winds, but a
storm only began to blow up in the last two games with the way
which Willstrop tore through them.
After a collision sent Darwish tumbling for a third time,
Willstrop advanced rapidly to 6-1 in the third game, gaining a
psychological hold on the match. The Egyptian played
intelligently and determinedly but gradually found the
Englishman’s weight of shot and forcing consistency too much.
Then when Willstrop fell heavily early in the fourth, it seemed
to turn the character of the contest completely. He got up and
took the next three rallies with brilliantly taken much quicker
winners, and extended the streak into an unstoppable sequence of
ten successive points.
 “I
am tapping into my strengths a little bit better,” he said
rather modestly. “I have been helped physically by some
fantastic people and have adapted my squash to suit my physical
constitution which has been one of my weaker areas.”
He added, perhaps significantly: ”I’m just trying to keep a
relaxed attitude and hope this can be maintained.
If it is, and if world number one Nick Matthew fails to recover
from an adductor injury before next month’s World Series in
Delhi next month, he could even come close to the pinnacle
before 2011 is out.
 |
|
