Quarter-Finals:

[5] Mohamed Elshorbagy (Egy) 3-1 Daryl Selby (Eng) 
             11/9, 7/11, 11/4, 11/2 (47m)

[7] Borja Golan (Esp) 3-1 [1] Gregory Gaultier (Fra)
           7/11, 12/10, 11/6, 15/13 (79m)

[4] Karim Darwish (Egy) 3-0 Karim Abdel Gawad (Egy)
            11/6, 11/5, 11/7 (32m)

[3] Nick Matthew (Eng) 3-0 [6] Amr Shabana (Egy)
            12/10, 2/2 rtd (27m)

Quarters Roundup

The first player through to the semi-final was Mohamed Elshorbagy, beat yesterday’s giant-killer Daryl Selby in four games.

After two evenly-contested games were shared the young Egyptian ran away with the next two, guaranteeing an Egyptian finalist in the process.

The second match produced a stunning upset as Borja Golan recorded one of his best ever wins to beat top seed and defending Qatar Classic champion Gregory Gaultier in a tough, tense and often contentious four game battle.

Far more straightforward was Karim Darwish's victory in his all-Egyptian match with Karim Abdel Gawad.

The fourth seed was always in charge as he completed a straight games win in just over half an hour.

Nick Matthew completed the semi-final lineup in just under the half hour mark, in a match sadly cut short by a knee injury to Amr Shabana.

Matthew had taken the first 12/10 after saving two game balls, but at 2-2 in the second Shabana pulled up with an injury he sustained during that first game.

So the semi-final lineup is Shorbagy v Darwish and Matthew v Golan, starting at 18.30 on Thursday.

[5] Mohamed Elshorbagy (Egy) 3-1 Daryl Selby (Eng)
             11/9, 7/11, 11/4, 11/2 (47m)

Daryl Transformed

A very nervous Mohamed to start with, with the absence of James that opened the draw and put a bit more pressure on him at that stage of the competition, while a Chrysalides player that has become a Beautiful Butterfly within a matter of weeks had nothing to lose….

I truly feel that yes, Daryl had great wins before, Nick last year in Kw, etc. But I feel that beating Karim last week, and to beat him at his own game, as in at the front of the court, has allowed the 31 years old to realise that he can beat anybody, and in some magical way, has just transformed him from a solid good player into a magical one.

Yes, today, he scared Mohamed. He scared him enough to push him to make 6 errors in the first game, and 5 in the second. He then was a bit flat from the hard work produce the day before against Daddy James (90m) both from a mental and physical point of view.

Today, Mohamed had to produce some great squash to shake the Englishman off, and he looked several very surprised by Daryl’s game. And it really took some serious kick in the racquet for the Egyptian to beat the Englishman today….

I’m absolutely fine physically. It’s just him that made me play not that well! All him! I know my record says that he beat me once, but honestly, that the best he ever played against me. And it’s probably our best match as well.

He now varies his pace. He came from a medium pace, and just doesn’t play that anymore. It’s not high either, it’s just between and it surprised me. But I wanted to see how long it would take him to feel his match yesterday. Because he was playing at his pace, and when you do that the day after you had a great win, normally, your body says stop at some point. And I wanted to see if that would happen to him. So I was happy to play at the pace he wanted to play, and make it last as long as he wanted.

After the second, I didn’t panic, I just slowed down the pace to go under the pace he feels comfortable at, because when you are tired, and somebody forces you to slow down, you feel even more tired!

At the moment, he is full of confidence after the great wins he had lately, Barker, Darwish, James last night. So I thought that I had to destroy that confidence. And no better way than to beat him at his own pace… So I made sure I beat him at his own game, then imposed mine…

But you know, he is 31. And I guess like we all thought he was going to stay at his level, but it’s quite the opposite! He has improve sooo much! And that will inspire me one day. When I’m 31, I’ll know that I can still improve, like he did. And actually I’ll ask him how he did it to try and do the same one day…. He is a true inspiration…

Mohamed Elshorbagy

[7] Borja Golan (Esp) 3-1 [1] Gregory Gaultier (Fra)
      7/11, 12/10, 11/6, 15/13 (79m)

Golan takes out top seed Gaultier

The second match of the day produced a stunning upset as Borja Golan recorded one of his best ever wins to beat top seed and defending Qatar Classic champion Gregory Gaultier in a tough, tense and often contentious four game battle.

After Gaultier had taken the first game the bumps, collisions and appeals increased, and Golan took advantage to take the next two games against the odds.

The fourth was contentious all the way, with both players appealing at the end of virtually every rally, lots of stoppages, and if some of the decisions seemed a little random it was hardly surprising given what was going on on court.

Golan led 6-4, Gaultier seemed to have weathered the storm at 9-7 but Golan battled on, having match balls at 10-9 and 12-11 before finally converting 15-13 as he put in a short ball that Gaultier's efforts to get to and appeal to the refs were denied.

"You have to be tough inside the court," said a delighted Spaniard. "Greg is such a great player even if I play my best I would probably lose, so I have to play every point like it was the last one, and I think I played pretty well today."

Fram reports:

Not the best of atmosphere…

To be honest, I wish somebody else would write this report for me. Because I didn’t enjoy this match at all. Maybe my proximity with Greg makes me biased. I don’t deny that. So it makes it extremely difficult for me to stay fair. On either of them. I really didn’t enjoy the match.

I thought today that Greg looked extremely tired. Yesterday, off the record, the Frenchman told me he was, but that he still didn’t want to lose. And he showed that today in that fourth, where he fought and dug in to get his game balls and fight the three match balls Borja had, even if he finally bowed in a very contentious ending, to say the least..

I have so much more things to say about some attitude on the court, some aggressiveness that was not penalised, or about how it looked like the decisions were basically picked out of a hat. Again, my feeling. My opinion. With all my good will, I was trying to find a line, a logic to those calls. And I failed. Yes, a lot to say about this match. But once again, my proximity with Greg is probably clouding my judgment. So I won’t dwell or develop.

Borja has been playing extremely well recently and in this tournament. His mixing of the shots and his redrops have made immense damage. And today on top of that, he played the perfect mental game, managing to get under Greg’s skin, very clever play indeed. He also dominated the backhand wall, normally Greg’s private garden.

But where he got the Frenchman more than anything, was with his fantastic boasting. They took every inch of gas that Greg had to just return them, and today, the Frenchman didn’t have enough power in the legs to transform them into winners was he would normally do. He could only return them, opening the court for a Spanish far too happy to return the favour. Like I said, a great performance from the Spanish.

Greg had a great run. One match too far. Hope he can rest a bit now until Hong Kong. He deserves it.
 

[4] Karim Darwish (Egy) 3-0 Karim Abdel Gawad (Egy)
            11/6, 11/5, 11/7 (32m)

Far too much respect...

Funny, a bit the same feeling I had when Abouelgar was playing Karim Abdel Gawad - that the Egyptians actually call Sami, go and figure - today, Sami was paying too much respect to Darwish.

Yes, there was nice rallies and all, and Sami is as dangerous as it comes if you give him a ball in the racquet on his forehand volley. But I had that feel that oh well, I'm in the quarters of a Wolrd Series for my first full time pro event, and I'm happy. If you see what I mean.

Darwish on the other hand didn't have any feeling of charity today bless him! He was there to do the job, he made every rally extremely hard for young Sami and just killed him in 32m.

The end.

As we train together a lot – and with the other players – he knows my strength and I know his. He is a typical gifted Egyptian player, and I had to be 100% ready and at the top of my game to beat him, because I know how dangerous he is if you give him a loose ball…

He is a good player, I have been saying for about 4 or 5 years that he is going to be a top guy, and if it hasn’t arrived yet, I know it’s coming soon…

Karim Darwish

[3] Nick Matthew (Eng) 3-0 [6] Amr Shabana (Egy)
            12/10, 2/2 rtd (27m)

Nick, Please stop breaking my players!!!!!!!!

A very angry Shabana had to withdraw from the tournament as he twisted his knee in the middle of the first game. Very horrible luck for the Godfather, as he just recovered from a bad liver problem that kept him riddle in bed for 5 weeks.

Remets-toi vite….

“I have probably the worst ever record for withdrawal in the History of Squash [Howard, maybe you can look that one up for us!]

I really don’t want to keep on winning like that, you know, I don’t want people to say that I keep winning tournaments because I get a good draw, or because I’m fresher than the other guy cause he got injured, etc.

I want to be the one that win 12/10 in the 5th and still wins the next day!!!!

It’s such a shame, it was getting the shape of a good match, I was a bit flat at the start, couldn’t get my length in, but at 6/3, I started to wake up and get my energy back.

Only thing that we can say is sorry to the people that make it here despite the traffic and I hope you’ll be back tomorrow. And I truly hope that Amr and Ramy get well soon…

Nick Matthew