[ TODAY ] [ SEMIS ] [ QUARTERS ] [ Round TWO ] [ Round ONE ] [ Qualifying ]

[10] Nick Matthew (Eng) bt [3] Ramy Ashour (Egy) 
               12/10, 8/11, 11/6, 11/5 (61m)

[4] Gregory Gaultier (Fra) bt [2] Karim Darwish (Egy) 
               2/11, 12/10, 11/5, 11/6 (50m)

Matthew and Gaultier
overturn the seedings

Two matches which were replays from the last major  event, the Saudi International, but with only one repeat result. England's Nick Matthew continued to upset the seedings as he once more beat world champion Ramy Ashour, while Gregory Gaultier overturned the result of the Saudi final to oust world number one Karim Darwish.

So there will be no repeat of the World Open final - in fact the final will, unusually, be an Egyptian-free zone - and a new ToC champion is guaranteed tomorrow ...
 

En Bref #7


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[10] Nick Matthew (Eng) bt [3] Ramy Ashour (Egy) 
               12/10, 8/11, 11/6, 11/5 (61m)

RAMY WORN DOWN

What a strange match that was for the World Champion, who started extremely focused and present on court, against a Nick Matthew full of confidence and firing hard and accurate length and width, that put the Egyptian under pressure from the first rally.

Nick took an excellent start, 6/2, was then caught up 6/6, 7/7, 9/9, 10/10, to take the game on his first game ball. Ramy was frustrated with himself, but still on the ball, still focused and confident he could come back and win the match.

Legend Ramy came back in the second more positive, but still had to defend an awful lot, Nick was again dictating the rallies, hitting the ball very hard indeed, pinning the Egyptian to the back. And Ramy wasn’t going for his lethal shots like he normally does. It was like he was trying to play “English Style” against one of the Masters of the Discipline…

Nick again took a good lead in that second game, 7/4, a nice premise to a 2/0 lead. But at that point, Nick just felt a bit short energy-wise, made a few errors, wasn’t able to apply the same pressure on Ramy who took a 15m second game.



We thought we were on for a big battle, but in the third the hard work that Nick forced him to produce, the long rallies, the running, the retrieving, the “always being on the back foot”, started to drain Ramy’s reserves, and from 4/1 Ramy Nick was able to score six points in a row. Ramy was not finding the openings he needed to conclude the points. And he started to lose confidence and lost that game, again in 15m….

The Egyptian was never in the fourth. Against a Nick still bursting with energy and dying to play again and again, Ramy who had played two enormous five-setters in the previous rounds, if not time-wise, but mental-wise, seem to go flat. His body language was telling us that he just wasn’t able to fight anymore. Nick was in the final again, as he was in 2006, the last time he was able to participate to the event… He must be over the moon!

One little point about Ramy, people, let’s not forget that he is only 21, and already world champion. And if today we salute Amr Shabana as one of the Greatest, he took his time to get there, didn’t he? So, let's give Ramy the same time to mature and find a mental balance that will match his incredible talent…

"In the second, I was a bit disappointed with myself. I saw the match against LJ and I thought that after taking the first one he looked he looked a bit rattled in the second, and that I shouldn’t have let him come back like that, I should have given it a big push to get a two love lead. Because once Ramy gets on a roll, he is virtually impossible to stop…

"In the third, he started with a lead, and I just got back to the basics, and varied the shots as much as I could. And maybe his errors seem like easy mistakes, but maybe they were caused because I was mixing the shots, hitting high, then low, volleying and cutting off the ball, maybe that unsettled him…

"I’m not sure what happened in the fourth really, if he was tired maybe, but I’ll take that!

"On a good day, mental and physical strength go together, that’s why we train, to be physically strong and mentally focused for every single shot. It’s only on a bad day, when you are struggling with your focus that you fall onto working with your physical strength, by lengthening the rallies. That’s plan B! I guess I switched to plan B from the first game…!!!

"No, I don’t have the feeling that I was in a zone! You can’t get into a zone against Ramy, he makes you work too hard, he varies the angles, the shots, you’ve got to be on your toes constantly. No, no zone, just a big push from beginning to end…"

"Exactly like yesterday, I had trouble getting the engine started. Patience. That’s what I didn’t have in the start, and that I got starting from the second. I got patient, I stayed calm

"I’m happy to play Nick in the final, we were training together this morning, we are really good friends and for a long time. I’m so glad he came back after his injury, he had such a run of bad luck recently, he went down to number 12, and he certainly doesn’t deserve that. I’m happy to see him in the final, it should be a great match…



"At the end, I feel that Karim refused long rallies, so I kept the pressure going, and kept on volleying…I know he said that he didn’t feel the pressure of being number one, that he feels relax, but surely, he must have felt it at some degree or another, when you reach that position, everybody wants to take it away from you.

"I feel much stronger, in my legs, when I lounge, when I run, etc, but most important, I feel stronger in my head…"

[4] Gregory Gaultier (Fra) bt [2] Karim Darwish (Egy) 
               2/11, 12/10, 11/5, 11/6 (50m)

KARIM NOT ALL THERE TONIGHT

My God, the world number one started so well tonight, maybe too well? Greg took the same awful start that he took yesterday against David, and the game was quickly over, 11/2 for Karim. The second was much more intense, both players now playing at their pace, and Greg taking the comfortable lead, 7/3.

Patiently, calmly, Karim came back, and never let Greg get away for more than one point. He was finding his trademark forehand drop shots, the rallies were disputed, and at 9/9 it was anybody’s game really. We had two enormous points, 10/9 game ball for Greg, with several lets, and finally a tin from Greg. One game ball saved. But Karim won’t save the second one.

From that point on, I have no idea of what happened. Did Karim, thinking he should have gone 2/0, relax a bit? I don’t know. The fact is he lost his game completely. He started stringing unforced errors, which is not like him at all. Greg took full advantage of the World Number One's disarray, and took the third game 11/5, thanks to six tins from Karim.



The fourth game was going to be pretty much the same outcome, six unforced errors for the Egyptian, and a Frenchman who just kept on hitting the nail on the head. Greg will be delighted to keep the match to a reasonable length. He’ll need all his energy to meet a Nick Matthew fresh as a rose, and hungrier that he ever was in his career.

My head was just not on the court today, I just did not deserve to win…