World No.1 Elshorbagy Leads Egyptian Charge Into El Gouna Quarters by Nathan Clarke April 26, 2016
- World No.1 and tournament favourite Mohamed Elshorbagy saw off a
spirited challenge from England's Chris Simpson to move into the
quarter-finals of the 2016 El Gouna International and keep alive his
hopes of going one better than his 2014 and 2015 runner-up finishes at
the PSA World Series tournament taking place beside the Red Sea.
It
wasn't one way traffic for the man who has dominated the PSA World Tour
this season, winning five consecutive PSA World Series tournaments, as
Simpson hustled and harried him throughout. But it was
Elshorbagy's greater class that made the difference in the latter
stages of all three games as he took the crucial points to leave the
Englishman rueing wasted opportunities including a squandered game ball
chance in the third.
"I got very lucky in the third game
especially," said Elshorbagy. "He kept pushing hard - the conditions
were very tough, hot and humid and when the conditions are like that it
can mess your head a little bit.
"I think I dealt with the
conditions well enough and I'm really happy I got through in the third
game - as the competition goes on it gets tougher so I have to rest
well and prepare for tomorrow."
Elshorbagy will now face
World No.9 Simon Rösner for a place in the semi-finals after the
towering German put a halt to the charge of Mexican qualifier Cesar
Salazar who had come through a mammoth 200 minutes to reach the second
round of a World Series event for the first time in his career.
"Simon and I have had some great battles over the years and I am sure tomorrow will be another one," said Elshorbagy.
"We
have never played in conditions quite like this so it will be
interesting to see how we both deal with it - I'm sure it will be high
quality and exciting for the crowd."
Hard-hitting Egyptian
Omar Mosaad and Colombian Miguel Angel Rodriguez will face-off in the
second quarter-final in the top half of the draw while in the bottom
half, World Champion Gregory Gaultier came through his second round
match against Stephen Coppinger to set up an last eight encounter with
Ali Farag - the man he beat in the semi-final stage during last week's
Grasshopper Cup.
"Ali and I have played quite a lot
recently," said Gaultier. "He's a fantastic player and another rising
star from Egypt so I need to recover well now and be as fresh as
possible for tomorrow.
“Hopefully we can produce another good game and I know it will be tough."
Grasshopper
Cup champion Marwan ElShorbagy, younger brother of Mohamed, will face
fellow Egyptian Fares Dessouki in the last quarter-final after the pair
came through their encounters with Omar Abdel Meguid and Karim Abdel
Gawad, respectively.
