CHENNAI, India: Fresh from his triumph in the World Open in Bremuda last week, Egypt’s World No.1 Amr Shabana will be hoping to keep the momentum going to help his country regain the men’s World Team Championship starting here on Thursday.
Shabana, who became only the fourth player in history to lift the World Open title for a third time, and Egypt are regarded as the favorites by coaches and players to win the title for the second time in the 40 years history of the championship.
Egypt will be looking to take revenge for their loss to England in the last edition in Islamabad in 2005 when James Willstrop got the better of Shabana 3-1 and Peter Nicol won over Abbas 3-0.
France defeated Canada 2-1 playoff for third place on that occasion. This time around, former World No.1 Jonathan Power, 33, who retired from the professional circuit in March last year, is making a comeback to assist Canada.
Shabana said he is not unduly worried about the absence of his compatriot, Ramy Ashour who is nursing a stress fracture injury on his left leg.
“We will be missing Ramy but it is not a worry, as we have (Karim) Darwish, (Wael El) Hindi and Mohammad Abbas as good foils to me, he said.
Andre Delhoste, France’s head coach told AFP that he rated Egypt, England and Australia, besides his own country, as the best bets to reach the last four.
After that it would depend on how players performed on the day to determine who would lift the world title.
Defending champions England, Egypt and Australia are good teams and they all have prepared well enough for the championship, he said.
As for the chances of his own team, Delhoste said: We do not want to think about winning the title right away and will take it match by match.
We have two strong players in Gregory Gaulthier and Thierry Lincou.
Renan Levigne has also been in good nick and playing very well. We will try and reach the semi-finals before taking a plunge for the title.
Shabana predicted that England and France would be the strongest teams.
We have a good team. We can do well. Maybe, win the tournament too. I consider England and France and Australia as the main threats.
The top four teams have highly-ranked players in their squads with top seeded Egypt having Shabana (1), Darwish (8), Hindi (9) and Abbas (14).
England have Willstrop (6), Nick Matthew (5), Lee Beachill (12) and Peter Barker (13).
France has a mixture of seeds in Gaultier (3), Lincou (7), Lavigne (27) and Julien Balbo (51) compared to Australia with David Palmer (4), Stewart Boswell (15), Cameron Pilley (23) and Scott Arnold (58).
In all, 29 teams, including debutants Sri Lanka, Bermuda and Taiwan will compete in the event. -AFP
