QATAR CLASSIC 2008

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Darwish Delivers In Qatar Classic Final

Egyptian Karim Darwish finally fulfilled the promise he has shown all year when he defeated world number one compatriot Amr Shabana in straight games in the final of the Qatar Classic to secure the biggest PSA Tour title of his career at the Khalifa International Squash Complex in the Qatar capital Doha.

The women's final saw Nicol David of Malaysia claim her third successive title after beating Dutch rival Natalie Grinham, also in straight games.

It was a case of 'third time lucky' twice for sixth seed Darwish when he celebrated his stunning 11-4, 11-5, 11-3 victory over Shabana, the favourite and defending champion, in just 27 minutes in the final of the $145,000 Super Series Platinum PSA Tour event. 

Firstly, it was the 27-year-old's first win over his Egyptian team-mate in three meetings in the past year.  Furthermore, it was Darwish's third Tour final in a row, after finishing as runner-up both in the Petrosport International Championship in August in Cairo, and last month's World Open in Manchester.

"I had done my homework. I know him well, come what may, he will give his best," Darwish told the Gulf Times.  "It was just that I was greedier for this title," added the new star of Egyptian squash who can now surely look forward to celebrating his highest world ranking in next week's new Dunlop PSA World Rankings.

After winning his first PSA Super Series crown, Darwish brings his Tour tally to 14 titles.

Nicol David showed no signs of holding back on her domination of the women's game as she stormed to an 11-7, 11-3, 11-9 triumph in just 29 minutes over the younger Grinham sister, ranked three in the world, in the final of the $74,000 Gold WISPA World Tour event

The victory took the 25-year-old World Open champion from Penang's career statistics to a new high:  33 Tour titles in total; her 11th in a row; and the 48th WISPA match without defeat in just over a year!

Grinham summed up the match:  "She (David) was in an awesome form and never allowed me to settle down. She was more determined to retain her crown here. I was struggling to keep pace with her game all through."

Qualifying

Alister Walker (Eng) bt Mohd Nafiizwan Adnan (Mas)            11/7, 11/9, 11/5 (44m)
Kashif Shuja (Nzl) bt Campbell Grayson (Nzl)      11/6, 9/11, 11/7, 6/11, 11/5 (59m)
Mansoor Zaman (Pak) bt Martin Knight (Nzl)                        11/2, 11/6, 11/5 (28m)
Chris Ryder (Eng) bt Shahid Zaman (Pak)                           11/4, 11/5, 11/6 (34m)
Mohamed El Shorbagy bt (Egy)Amr Swelim (Egy)             11/8, 12/10, 11/9 (32m)
Daryl Selby (Eng) bt Adil Maqbool (Pak)                     11/8, 9/11, 11/2, 11/4 (37m)
Chris Simpson (Eng) bt Ali Anwar Reda (Egy)                  11/8, 14/12, 13/11 (56m)
Tarek Momen (Egy) bt Wade Johnstone (Aus)                     11/7, 11/5, 11/2 (31m)

25 Oct, Round One:
Martin Knight (Nzl) bt Ali Miski (Leb)                                  11/6, 11/2, 11/3 (27m)
Chris Simpson (Eng) bt Mamoon Ur Rashid (Pak)                11/8, 11/1, 11/4 (26m)


 

Qualifying:

Aisling Blake (Irl) bt Nouran El Torky (Egy)                        11/7, 11/6, 11/6 (27m)
Lauren Siddall (Eng) bt Joey Chan (Hkg)                   11/7, 9/11, 11/8, 11/6 (41m)
Emma Beddoes (Eng) bt Heba El Torky (Egy)    11/9, 11/9, 5/11, 8/11, 11/0 (64m)
Alana Miller (Can) bt Kanzy Del Defway (Egy)            4/11, 11/7, 11/8, 11/8 (42m)
Laura Mylotte (Irl) bt Nour El Tayeb (Egy)         5/11, 11/8, 5/11, 11/9, 11/9 (42m)
Orla Noom (Ned) bt Adel Weir (Rsa)                                   11/2, 11/5, 11/7 (27m)

25-Oct, Round One:
Kanzy El-Defrawy (Egy) bt Jenna Gates (Eng)                          11/2, 7/1 rtd (11m)
Nour El Tayeb (Egy) bt Eliza Kargioti (Gre)                         11/1, 11/0, 11/3 (11m)
Adel Weir (Rsa) bt Irina Assal (Rus)                                  11/5, 11/8, 11/4 (22m)
 

Quarter-finals:
World Champion’s Shock Exit
World Champion, Ramy Ashour has crashed out of the Qatar Classic in the quarter-finals, 10 days after becoming world champion in Manchester, and fled the Khalifa Stadium in a state of depression.

Ramy lead the Frenchman Thierry Lincou by a game and 9-6 with his usual fare of brilliant shot-making and lightening retrieving that can so easily turn defence into attack. Lincou was struggling to get the ball past the Egyptian who read him well and volleyed whole successions of shots. Then at 9-6 Ray’s feet shot out from under him. He lay there holding his knee for some time and prayed in Arabic as all awaited a verdict. Ramy hobbled about the court, finally played on but was obviously distracted by his leg problems. Lincou was at gameball 10-9 in one hand, Ramy equally with a stunning forehand kill and then was stroked by the referees when many in the crowd thought he had cleared his shot, tinned a drop and suddenly Lincou was level in games.

Ramy reappeared in an ankle brace, and ran through his shots in the third lacking any confidence in putting weight on his leg. He lobbed, tried of revert to a more basic game, something alien to him, but now Lincou was sharp and punished his lack of movement to win he third 11-6 and go 2/1 up.

Ramy, appeared this time sporting a knee support, at the start of the fourth, but struggled to get down to backhand boasts fading away from him on the right but his lobs and length now started to work and create the space for his winning shots. At 7-4 he had a serious difference with the referee and blew his lead but dominated the T again to surge ahead 9-7 only to lose it when he was stroked for a low lob for Lincou to seized matchball 10-9. Then Ramy responded with his best shots of the match – a forehand kill from deep hit so low and with such force that, although Lincou got a racket to it, it was impossible to control. The game was won when Ramy reached high overhead on the backhand wrapped his racket up behind and over the ball and patted it firmly down for a winning crosscourt volley nick. Ramy took the game 12-10 and against the odds levelled the match at 2 games all.

The momentum was with him. He started the fifth going 3-0 up but slowly his confidence ebbed away. He lost control of the rallies, lost confidence in his movement and Lincou cool and clinical cut him up with a whole succession of winners to take the match 11-3. Ramy bundled up his rackets and departed leaving Lincou to explain his win.

Tracked down shortly afterwards he was despondent: “Something is wrong. I’m trying to play this game but it’s as if I am cursed. It’s an old injury from when I was 14 years old. My leg twisted and I felt it go,” he said.

Lincou is through to the semi-finals to face his old adversary, the world no.1 Amr Shabana in a battle of former world champions. Shabana put out England’s Peter Barker 11-8, 11-6, 11-6 in a clinical display and now looks favourite for this title.

Seventh Time Lucky
England’s Nick Matthew goes through to the semi-finals after a tumultuous match with David Palmer but what sort of condition he will be in is a different question. Matthew had his chances to arrive in reasonable shape after surging to a two game lead 11-3, 11-9 lead and holding matchball 10-7 in the third but that opportunity was to seem ancient history as Palmer heroically saved matchball after matchball and turned the pressure back on Matthew while running an open feud with the referee over attempts to get the floor whipped.

In one hand Palmer came back, saving matchballs at 7,8, and 9 controlling the rallies and then finishing them with clinical winners to win game ball himself as Matthew faltered with a final boast in the tin.

Remarkably, the fourth was a replay; Matthew getting away to 5-1 and in desperately tough rallies again winning matchball 10-8. Again Palmer drove deep, persisted, forced the openings, scored with a forehand volley drop forced an error on a clinging drop and was level again. Matthew had another chance at 12-11 but Palmer staged unbelievable recoveries to recover the initiative and at 13-all dibbled a deceptive little crosscourt drop across the front wall before Matthew now desperate to finish tinned a forehand volley drop. Two games all, six matchballs saved.

Palmer was ahead at 4-3 in the fifth but miss hit, went the wrong way a couple of times, dived into the back to retrieve, was given consecutive ‘no lets’, as Matthew set up what should have been an unassailable lead 9-4 and in all the delays and after 111 minutes he bounced up and down on the T as Palmer dragged himself to receive. The ball past him but still Palmer did not give up – he dived full length into the back but could not retrieve and Matthew more in relief than triumph left to the court to generous applause.

“I was praying for a mistake,” he said. “This is why David has won so may World and British Open titles. He was so tough on matchballs.”

“I’m not really happy. I should have been off ages ago,” he said with an eye on the semi-finals.

ROUND 2:
Shabana on course for Ramy Clash
World no.1, and top seed Amr Shabana, got through his second round match in the Qatar Classic but was not particularly convincing. He put out the fast improving Spaniard Borja Golan 3/1 and is down to meet England’s Peter Barker, in the quarter-finals. Perhaps in Shabana’s mind was a potential semi-final clash with the new World Champion Ramy Ashour in the semi-finals. To get there however Shabana will have to get past Barker – and he lost to him here last year.

“He played will today,” said Shabana after beating Borja Golan.

Shabana was 2/0 up went 2-0 up in the third but in his own words ‘relaxed’. Golan took four points in a row and it was a gap Shabana was never able to close. Down 7-4 in the fourth he was in all sorts of trouble but managed to get through 11-9 in 56 minutes.

Golan is not now a player to be taken for granted. In Paris at the Internationaux De France he beat both Thierry Lincou and James Willstrop to reach the final.

“He has been studying the top players,” said Shabana. “He now knows how to play them and mixes it up. Before he was waiting for us to attack and he just retrieved.”

Barker dropped the third against Alister Walker but was able to keep ahead in the fourth to win 11-4, 11-8, 7-11, 11-8.

Ramy, was in random mood against the young Tarek Momen, dropping the fourth and will have to step it up to beat Shabana.

ROUND 1:

Matthew Masters El Shorbagy In Qatar Classic

After upsetting Malaysia's ninth seed Ong Beng Hee in the first round of the Qatar Squash Classic, Egyptian schoolboy Mohamed El Shorbagy met his match in Nick Matthew when he went down to the seventh-seeded Englishman in the last sixteen round of the men's $145,000 Super Series Platinum PSA Tour event at the Khalifa International Squash Complex in the Qatar capital Doha.

There were two second round surprises in the women's $74,000 Gold WISPA World Tour event when Egypt's ninth seed Omneya Abdel Kawy beat Jenny Duncalf, the No5 seed from England, and Ireland's 12th seed Madeline Perry put out sixth-seeded New Zealander Shelley Kitchen.
 

QUALIFYING 1:

El Shorbagy Cruises Into Qatar Classic Draw

Egyptian schoolboy Mohamed El Shorbagy continued the form which took him into the quarter-finals of the Hi-Tec World Open in England earlier this month when he earned a place in the main draw of the Qatar Squash Classic in the Qatar capital Doha.

The world's top players are competing in one the biggest events of the squash year - combining the men's $145,000 Super Series Platinum PSA Tour event and the women's $74,000 Gold WISPA World Tour event at the Khalifa International Squash Complex.

Shorbagy, 17, defeated compatriot Amr Swelim 11-8, 12-10, 11-9 in the men's qualifying finals and will now face Ong Beng Hee, the ninth seed from Malaysia, in the first round.

England's world number three James Willstrop has been forced to withdraw from the event after a recurrence of the ankle injury which he sustained in September.  "It was giving me trouble in a Premier League match last week and I have been advised to rest it.  I am really disappointed to be missing the Qatar Classic," said Willstrop, the 2005 champion.

Egypt's Amr Shabana is seeded to retain the men's title he won twelve months ago.  The world number one faces Pakistan qualifier Mansoor Zaman in the first round.

Malaysian Nicol David is expected to lift the women's trophy for the third successive year.  Unbeaten since October last year, world number one David reclaimed the World Open crown this month - and begins her Qatar campaign against England's Dominique Lloyd-Walter.

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