Ramy Retires with Apparent Achilles Injury as ElShorbagy And Farag To Meet In Al Ahram Semis by Nathan Clarke
photos squashpics.com
September 20, 2016
- Three-time World Champion Ramy Ashour's hopes of winning the 2016 Al
Ahram Squash Open NewGiza - the illustrious $100k tournament taking
place at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza - and writing his name
into Egyptian sporting folklore came to a crushing and premature end as
he limped off court during today's quarter-final encounter with Ali
Farag.
Mid way through what was shaping up to be a closely fought and
entertaining first game Ashour stopped after an innocuous looking
movement, but was immediately in pain and was forced to shake his
opponents hand and concede as his injury demons struck once again to
grant Farag passage into the last four to face World No.1 Mohamed
ElShorbagy.
25-year-old ElShorbagy, who last month surpassed Ashour's mark of 21
months as World No.1, looked shaky on his debut appearance here last
night when he came from behind to knock out Cameron Pilley and he again
found himself behind on two occasions to Germany's Simon Rösner before
coming through to end all international interest in the Men's draw.
"I felt flat today," said ElShorbagy afterwards. "I had to push hard
mentally to make it happen and make sure that it would take a lot of
effort to beat me here.
"He was playing very well but when I pushed I think he went defensive and that helped me.
"To be honest I'm proud that I could win today. It's moments like this
that separate the top athletes from the others - today was tough but I
live for these kind of challenges."
In the Women's draw there was further local joy as World No.1 Nour El
Sherbini dispatched Omneya Abdel Kawy with ease before wildcard Nour El
Tayeb followed up her impressive first round defeat of the in-form
Nouran Gohar to come through a thrilling 83 minute battle with
England's Alison Waters.
El Tayeb came out firing and looked to be on her way to a comfortable
victory as she took a 2-0 lead, with Waters looking out of sorts, but
the Englishwoman mounted a gargantuan challenge, saving multiple match
balls in the third to take it 13-11 and then securing the fourth game
14-12 before El Tayeb delighted the crowd with an 11-8 win in the fifth.
"I think that is the toughest match I've ever won," said El Tayeb after.
"I've never been match ball up and lost before and there was a lot
going through my head. It got quite heated and I just panicked.
"I told all my friends to come and watch me and the thought of losing
was going through my head. At 10-8 in the third I had that thought of
winning and having that picture of the pyramids in the background and
boom it hit me and I crumbled.
"But I kept pushing and pushing and I have a rest day tomorrow so I can
train and work on a few things and hopefully play better in the next
round."
Al Ahram Squash Open NewGiza - Women's Quarter-finals - To Be Played September 21
[3] Raneem El Welily (EGY) v [7] Amanda Sobhy (USA)
Sarah-Jane Perry (ENG) v [2] Nicol David (MAS)
Al Ahram Squash Open NewGiza - Men's Quarter-final Results:
[1] Mohamed Elshorbagy (EGY) bt [6] Simon Rösner (GER) 3-2: 5-11, 11-8, 4-11, 11-6, 11-5 (66m)
[4] Ali Farag (EGY) bt [7] Ramy Ashour (EGY) 3-0: 6-5 retired (15m)
Al Ahram Squash Open NewGiza - Men's Quarter-final - To Be Played September 21
[3] Karim Abdel Gawad (EGY) v [5] Tarek Momen (EGY)
[LL] Zahed Mohamed (EGY) v [2] Omar Mosaad (EGY)
