Canada's Shawn Delierre Part of Longest Match in Squash History by Danny da Costa January 27, 2015 OTTAWA (ON) –
Montreal’s Shawn Delierre set a world record in losing his semi final
match at the Professional Squash Association (PSA) World Tour event in
Medicine Hat, Alberta this past weekend losing to World No. 33 Leo Au
of Hong Kong in an incredible 170 minutes. Au who defeated
Delierre went on to claim his ninth PSA World Tour Title at the
Holtrand Gas City Pro-Am 2015. Incredibly, Delierre, Canada’s #1
player, has been part of 3 of the 5 longest matches in squash history.
Au lifted the trophy following a tough 85-minute battle against
Malaysian Muhd Asyraf Azan, coming from 2-1 down to win 3-2, in a
dramatic victory that came less than 24 hours after he won the longest
match ever recorded - a mammoth 170-minute encounter against Canadian
Shawn Delierre, the World No.54, in the semi-finals.
It was a match that eclipsed the previous record set 32-years ago by
legendary Pakistani six-time world champion Jahangir Khan, who took
166-minutes to get past Gamal Awad in the 1983 Chichester Festival in
the era of ‘hand-in-hand-out’ scoring.
With the fifth game, which went to 16-14, lasting an incredible
78-minutes alone the victory saw Au, who stands at 5ft 4, complete a
total of over 300-minutes on court during the four-day tournament,
averaging 75-minutes-plus per day as he stormed to the title, earn his
place in the annals of sporting history in the process.
"It was a tough week for me because I'm physically and mentally exhausted after the tournament," said Au.
"I'm really happy to win this match against Shawn. In the fifth game
neither of us ever had a big lead, it was 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 and always very
tight.
"When we got to the tie-break I don't think anyone could tell who would
win in that situation because both of us were tired and we were still
pushing hard for each point. Fortunately, I managed to finish the match
at 16-14!
"I was physically very tired in the final but I just fought for each
point and didn't think much about other things. I'm happy that my
fitness lasted until the end and that I was able to stay focused during
the match."
PSA Chief Executive Alex Gough said: "The fact that Leo not only won
his 170-minute match against Shawn, but then followed it up by winning
the final in 85-minutes, with less than 24 hours recovery, is testament
to the kind of physical conditioning that is par for the course on the
PSA World Tour at present.
"In sports like premier league football players are lauded for
completing two 90-minute matches inside seven days while we are
regularly seeing players backing up from 60-minute plus battles on a
daily basis at all events, from the Challenger level all the way
through to World Series, demonstrating the supreme fitness levels that
are required to play squash at the highest standard and the players
deserve all the credit for the efforts they put in."
Results: Holtrand Gas City Pro-AM
Final
[1] Leo Au (HKG) bt [4] Muhd Asyraf Azan (MAS) 3-2: 11-7, 6-11, 9-11, 11-3, 11-5 [85m]
