ToC Men’s Semis: Magnificent Ashour Rallies Past Willstrop
by Rob Dinerman for DailySquashReport.com
photo TOC media
Dateline January 23rd, 2013 --- In a riveting and undulating battle of wills, skills, styles and personalities that resulted in more than enough protracted stretches of extraordinary excellence on the part of both players to make it fully deserving of inclusion high up in any listing of the best matches ever played in this venue, Ramy Ashour defeated top-seeded James Willstrop 5-11 11-8 12-10 10-12 11-4 in the semifinal round of the $115,000 J. P. Morgan Tournament Of Champions before a packed and vocally appreciative gallery in Grand Central Station. The exhausted but elated Ashour will now face Greg Gaultier, a four-game winner over defending champion Nick Matthew in the bottom-half semi, Thursday evening in the final.
Willstrop was razor-sharp through the first game and a half, especially with his forehand, on which he can do so much damage with late-in-the-swing wrist flicks when he has time and room to set himself. Ashour, who also lost the opening game of his Monday-evening quarterfinal against Omar Mosaad before prevailing in a close four, was a bit tinny and allowing Willstrop to dictate the play. But at 4-7 in the second game, he nailed one of his trademark shots, a backhand overhead cross-drop, perfectly into the front-right nick, jump-starting a scintillating 7-1 game-ending run that lifted the entire match to a different level from that point onwards.
There is a knife-like, slashing quality to Ashour’s game, in terms of both his mobility and his stroke, which, combined with cat-like grace and the creativity of an artist, can conjure up the kind of sheer brilliance that would have enabled him to dominate the action were it not for Willstrop’s equally magnificent production. The latter, though not as naturally gifted a mover as his young Egyptian opponent, is nevertheless just as effective a retriever, and his uncanny ability to anticipate Ashour’s shot selection, perhaps abetted by the fact that this pair have met 19 times during the past six years, including four times in this mid-town Manhattan setting, enabled him not only get to many of Ashour’s would-be winners but often to counter-punch to telling effect as well.
The most fiercely-contested and high-quality points of the night, fittingly, occurred in the last half-dozen points of the third and fourth games, both of which, as noted were resolved in tiebreakers. A late-game run by Ashour in the third earned him a 10-7 advantage, but Willstrop played three consecutive remarkable points, making some miraculous gets along the way (two of them on the 10-9 point, including one on a ball that he didn’t see and had sped past him but which he nonetheless instinctively steered back into play) and knotting the score at 10-all before Ashour caught a pair of consecutive nicks to salvage that game.
He managed to advance to 10-9, match-ball, in the fourth, only to be stymied by a relentless Willstrop’s rally that netted him the three-straight points he needed to force a fifth game. In the closing stretches of each of those two games, there would be some grueling, frantically-paced exchanges after which one spectator would remark to the person next to him that “that was the best point of the night,” ---- only to have the following point be even better!
The fifth game seesawed evenly through the first half-dozen points, but by then both players had been performing at such a high level, especially in the heroic rallies each had staged just as the match seemed to be turning irreparably against him, that one got the sense that, if either player would be able to wedge open a small lead, he would likely be home free. Ultimately it would prove to be Ashour who would summon up the needed spurt, his five-point run from 3-all effectively sealing the outcome of the match, which actually ended somewhat anticlimactically when, with Ashour serving at 9-4, a spent Willstrop hit the return back at himself for a stroke call, then tinned a backhand drop shot. In his on-court interview just minutes after the final point, Ashour asserted that it had been “the most brutal match I think I have ever played.” Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that Willstrop has ever played better in a match that he didn't win.
by Rob Dinerman for DailySquashReport.com
photo TOC media
Dateline January 23rd, 2013 --- In a riveting and undulating battle of wills, skills, styles and personalities that resulted in more than enough protracted stretches of extraordinary excellence on the part of both players to make it fully deserving of inclusion high up in any listing of the best matches ever played in this venue, Ramy Ashour defeated top-seeded James Willstrop 5-11 11-8 12-10 10-12 11-4 in the semifinal round of the $115,000 J. P. Morgan Tournament Of Champions before a packed and vocally appreciative gallery in Grand Central Station. The exhausted but elated Ashour will now face Greg Gaultier, a four-game winner over defending champion Nick Matthew in the bottom-half semi, Thursday evening in the final.
Willstrop was razor-sharp through the first game and a half, especially with his forehand, on which he can do so much damage with late-in-the-swing wrist flicks when he has time and room to set himself. Ashour, who also lost the opening game of his Monday-evening quarterfinal against Omar Mosaad before prevailing in a close four, was a bit tinny and allowing Willstrop to dictate the play. But at 4-7 in the second game, he nailed one of his trademark shots, a backhand overhead cross-drop, perfectly into the front-right nick, jump-starting a scintillating 7-1 game-ending run that lifted the entire match to a different level from that point onwards.
There is a knife-like, slashing quality to Ashour’s game, in terms of both his mobility and his stroke, which, combined with cat-like grace and the creativity of an artist, can conjure up the kind of sheer brilliance that would have enabled him to dominate the action were it not for Willstrop’s equally magnificent production. The latter, though not as naturally gifted a mover as his young Egyptian opponent, is nevertheless just as effective a retriever, and his uncanny ability to anticipate Ashour’s shot selection, perhaps abetted by the fact that this pair have met 19 times during the past six years, including four times in this mid-town Manhattan setting, enabled him not only get to many of Ashour’s would-be winners but often to counter-punch to telling effect as well.
The most fiercely-contested and high-quality points of the night, fittingly, occurred in the last half-dozen points of the third and fourth games, both of which, as noted were resolved in tiebreakers. A late-game run by Ashour in the third earned him a 10-7 advantage, but Willstrop played three consecutive remarkable points, making some miraculous gets along the way (two of them on the 10-9 point, including one on a ball that he didn’t see and had sped past him but which he nonetheless instinctively steered back into play) and knotting the score at 10-all before Ashour caught a pair of consecutive nicks to salvage that game.
He managed to advance to 10-9, match-ball, in the fourth, only to be stymied by a relentless Willstrop’s rally that netted him the three-straight points he needed to force a fifth game. In the closing stretches of each of those two games, there would be some grueling, frantically-paced exchanges after which one spectator would remark to the person next to him that “that was the best point of the night,” ---- only to have the following point be even better!
The fifth game seesawed evenly through the first half-dozen points, but by then both players had been performing at such a high level, especially in the heroic rallies each had staged just as the match seemed to be turning irreparably against him, that one got the sense that, if either player would be able to wedge open a small lead, he would likely be home free. Ultimately it would prove to be Ashour who would summon up the needed spurt, his five-point run from 3-all effectively sealing the outcome of the match, which actually ended somewhat anticlimactically when, with Ashour serving at 9-4, a spent Willstrop hit the return back at himself for a stroke call, then tinned a backhand drop shot. In his on-court interview just minutes after the final point, Ashour asserted that it had been “the most brutal match I think I have ever played.” Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that Willstrop has ever played better in a match that he didn't win.
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