Top Seed Elshorbagy Advances in ToC by Nathan Clarke January 18, 2015
- The quarter-finals of the 2015 J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions
will be full of Egyptian flavour after Mohamed Elshorbagy, Amr Shabana
and Tarek Momen, the World No.1, No.3 and No.7 respectively, came
through their second round encounters in New York's Grand Central
Terminal today (Jan 18).
World No.1 Elshorbagy, the 24-year-old Egyptian based out of Bristol,
England, became the first man through to the last eight after edging
his way through a challenging encounter with Swiss national champion
Nicolas Mueller.
In a thrilling 62-minute encounter Elshorbagy had to be at the very top
of his game to overcome an inspired Mueller, who produced one of his
best ever performances on the PSA World Tour in the 11-3, 5-11, 15-13,
11-6 defeat.
With the scores tied at one-game-all a crucial tie-break in the third
game ultimately determined the outcome as both men refused to give an
inch in what was a brutal display of world class athleticism and
shot-making. Despite having several game-ball opportunities, Mueller
couldn't convert to establish a lead in the match and Elshorbagy made
the most of the reprieve to storm home.
"In that third game I told myself not to give up because I knew whoever
won that game would break the other player," said Elshorbagy.
"When I got the game ball opportunity I didn't want to let it go. I
wanted to make sure that I didn't waste it because Nicolas played a
great match and it was a very tough battle against him."
Defending champion Shabana, who became the oldest ever winner of a PSA
World Series event when he won here aged 34 in 2014, kept alive his
hopes of retaining the title with a 3-1 win over Australian Cameron
Pilley while Momen got the better of Indian Saurav Ghosal, winning 3-1
in a mixed performance.
Momen was in masterful form as he stormed out of the blocks and found
himself one-game up after just six minutes of action, extending his
lead to 2-0 with little opposition, but a series of errors allowed
Ghosal back into the match before he regained his composure to move
into the last eight.
"I tried to stick to a more conservative game plan against Saurav than I normally would do," said Momen.
"He's such a fast player and we have very similar styles so mentally he
is a tough opponent for me and he made it very hard for me today so I'm
just really pleased that I managed to stick to my plan and get through."
Draw - Second Round, Bottom Half (To be played Monday Jan 19)
[3] Nick Matthew (ENG) v Omar Mosaad (EGY)
Mathieu Castagnet (FRA) v [8] Simon Rösner (GER)
[5] Peter Barker (ENG) v Miguel Angel Rodriguez (COL)
[Q] Tom Richards (ENG) v [2] Gregory Gaultier (FRA)
