Illingworth Plays Well But Loses To Gaultier In Hong Kong First Round
by Ted Gross, for DailySquashReport.com
photo courtesy Steve Cubbins
November 16, 2011 - New York’s Julian Illingworth put up a spirited fight against fifth-ranked Gregory Gaultier of France yesterday but was eliminated in first round play in the $145,000 Hong Kong Open.
Julian went down two-love but stayed alive by pulling out a high-level third game 11-9. He faded in the fourth, however, and was closed out at 11-3 on a hot upper court at the Hong Kong Squash Center in a 65 minute match effort.
Illingworth, the world #30, gained the post-match admiration of Gaultier, who is coming off a career-best back-to-back tournament stretch in which he won the Super Series Qatar Classic and reached the finals of the World Open.
“I cannot stress enough how well Julian played,” Gaultier told Squashsite UK. “ I didn’t expect such a performance from him, he played very well, he volleyed very well too, took his chances too, and I really had to dig in and play very well to beat him.”
Julian’s post-match quoted comments, however, seemed to reference an injury:
“Well, it’s better than last week, and certainly much better than in the Worlds. It was a bit sore last week -still, I crapped through against Mathieu but I just couldn’t play more than 20m against Olli (Tuominen in a loss in Macau).”
“But today, it felt fine. It may be sore tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be as bad as it was recently.”
Result:
[5] Gregory Gaultier (Fra) bt Julian Illingworth (Usa) 11/6, 11/6, 9/11, 11/3 (65m)
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