World No.2 Mohamed ElShorbagy has won the Oracle NetSuite Open title for a second time, after he got the better of World No.3 Tarek Momen at Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco.
ElShorbagy said on Twitter that he was happy to win his 39th title and the second this season in San Francisco.
The San Francisco championship is the second this season for El-Shorbagy, having started with winning the China International Championship.
In the women’s final, world No.1 Ranim El-Walily won the championship’s title after beating her national Nour El Tayeb, world No5, in a 23-minute game.
The total value of the championship’s prizes for men and women is estimated at $121,000.
The international ranking of the Professional Squash Association (PSA) for male squash players in November has been announced. Karim Abdel Gawad, the most recent Egyptian world champion, jumped from fourth place in October to third place, supplanting his compatriot Omar Mosaad who now occupies fourth place.
Egypt’s Mohamed Elshorbagy continues to occupy the top spot, while Ramy Ashour has dropped from eighth to 10th place.
In what was an all-Egyptian final, Ramy Ashour has defeated Mohamed Elshorbagy to win his third world title in a thrilling final held in Doha.
The world’s number four player, Ashour, beat the world number one, Elshorbagy, 13-11, 7-11, 5-11, 11-5, 14-12 in a match that lasted 90 minutes.
“It was dramatic and brutal,” said Ashour regarding the match. He came back form 2-1 down to claiming his third World Open squash title and ending Elshorbagy’s 23-match winning streak.
“It was a fight and we tried to get inside each other’s game. We both tried to produce the best of our best squash.”
Ashour, 27, had reached the final after defeating France’s Gregory Gaultier, while Elshorbagy made it after beating the 2013 champion Nick Matthew.
This year’s final was a repeat of the all Egyptian 2012 final, in which both Elshorbagy and Ashour played for the title.
Meanwhile, Ashour’s victory came amid hopes that squash will feature in the 2020 Olympics which will be held in Tokyo.
An extraordinary session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at Monte Carlo will be held in December to approve changing the number of athletes at the Games, instead of the number of sports.
The World Squash Federation (WSF) is hopeful that this will open a door for the sport to be held at the Olympics.
“The WSF hopes that squash will be in, and I believe that we deserve to be in,” Mohamed El Menshawy, an Egyptian WSF Vice President, told the crowd in Doha.
Earlier this year squash officials were dismayed after wrestling was ejected and then reinstated for the 2020 Olympics at the expense of squash, softball, and baseball.
Ramy Ashour and Mohamed El-Shorbagy will contest the final of the Power Courts World Series Finals on Thursday. (Photo Courtesy of PSA)
Egyptian pair Ramy Ashour and Mohamed Elshorbagy, the No.3 and No.4 players in the world, respectively, will contest the final of the Power Courts World Series Finals at the Westwood Club in Richmond, Virginia Thursday.
Elshorbagy booked his place in the final with a 3-2 win over World No.1 Nick Matthew, his second consecutive win over the Englishman having beaten him in the 2013 Qatar Classic final, in a tense and hard-fought battle full of sublime squash action.
“I’m really happy to win today,” said Elshorbagy. “That’s the second time in a row I have beaten him 3-2 and today it was a very tough battle.
“I was really pleased with how I started in the fifth game and I think I broke him down mentally.
“There were some scrappy moments in the match but it’s an individual sport so things are bound to happen on court. We’re both hungry players but whatever happens on court stays on there and after the match we shook hands and he wished me good luck.”
Having already beaten Ashour 2-0 in the round robin best-of-three match phase earlier this week, Elshorbagy will be hoping to make it two-from-two against his elder compatriot and make amends for his defeat to Ashour in the 2012 World Championship in Qatar in what was one of the most exhilarating matches in recent years.
“Playing Ramy in the final is great and I’m really happy that we’ve been able to make it an all-Egyptian final,” he said.
“It’s the first ever all-Egyptian final in the World Series Finals history which is great for our country and I think our matches are always interesting because we’re both such attacking players.
“I will go back and recover now and see how it goes tomorrow. You train to play five tough matches in every tournament so hopefully I can come back and play even better tomorrow.”
Ashour will be looking to add a second World Series Finals title to his trophy cabinet, having won the event in 2007, and looked to be back at his sublime best as he dismantled French World No.2 Gregory Gaultier 3-0 in their semi-final.
“I think when I can beat Greg in three straight games in the form he has been in recently then I can say that I’m almost back at my full potential,” said Ashour.
“I’ve recently come back from injury and it’s still in the back of my head but I [am] happy and glad to play the way I did today.
“The most important thing for me now is to play injury free and to play without any threats and just think about only the ball without any other thoughts entering my mind.”
World Series Finals – Semi-final Results:
Ramy Ashour (EGY) bt Gregory Gaultier (FRA) 3-0: 13-11, 11-8, 11-7 (47 mins)
Mohamed Elshorbagy (EGY) bt Nick Matthew (ENG) 3-2: 9-11, 11-7, 11-6, 4-11, 11-3 (94 mins)
World Series Finals – Final Draw:
Ramy Ashour (EGY) v Mohamed Elshorbagy (EGY)
Mohamed Elshorbagy (right) beat his fellow countryman Karim Darwish in the PSA International 50 Banque Misr Sky Open in Egypt (Image courtesy of the Professional Squash Association)
By Howard Harding
Mohamed Elshorbagy collected his second PSA World Tour title in eight days – and established a career-best 10-match winning streak – when he upset top-seeded Egyptian compatriot Karim Darwish in the final of the Banque Misr Sky Open, the PSA International 50 squash event at the Sky Resort in New Cairo, Egypt.
Ranked six in the world, Elshorbagy is enjoying the form of his life: Last week in Doha, the 22-year-old from Alexandria captured his first PSA World Series title at the Qatar Classic – again defying the world rankings by beating world No 5 Darwish en-route to the final.
Elshorbagy went into the final 3-9 down to Darwish on a career head-to-head tally over the past four years – but had only dropped a single game in his three wins over the former world No 1 from Cairo.
And the young pretender clearly took full advantage of Darwish’s demanding route to the final, which had included two five-game marathons in which the 32-year-old had had to recover from two games down.
Darwish had no answer to the youngster’s pressure as Elshorbagy romped to an 11-2, 11-7, 11-8 victory in 43 minutes to win the seventh Tour title of his career.
“I had to be very focused from the very first point today as I knew if this gets very tough I could be in trouble mentally as I could feel last night I was tired mentally,” Elshorbagy told www.squashsite.com later.
“After winning the first game I knew he would give it a big push in the second as we both know there was no way today he could come back from 2/0 down as physically it would have been close to impossible after the amount of hard matches he had.
“So after the few long rallies we had in the second I knew that was good for me and I started going short more at the end of the second and I could feel he was struggling to move there because I could feel he was tired.
“I am just very happy I could back up after Qatar and the worlds.”
Mohamed Elshorbagy (pictured above in Sky action with Karim Darwish) went into the final 3-9 down to Darwish on a career head-to-head tally over the past four years – but had only dropped a single game in his three wins over the former world No 1 from Cairo. (Photo from http://www.squashinfo.com/)
By Howard Harding
Top seeds Karim Ali Fathi and Martin Knight will contest the final of the Prairie Auto Haus Saskatoon Boast Openin Canada after scoring almost identical successes in the semifinals of the PSA World Tour Challenger 10 squash event celebrating its 12th successive year at the Saskatoon YMCA in Saskatoon.
Favourite Ali Fathi will be trying to become the first Egyptian champion of the long-established event after seeing off Canadian hope Dane Sharp, the fourth seed from Toronto, 11-8, 11-9, 11-4 in 37 minutes.
“The first two games were closely contested with Ali Fathi having the edge with tighter length and fewer mistakes,” reported tournament promoter Brad Birnie. “As Sharp started to rally back to 9-8 in a crucial game two, Ali Fathi had the answers and won the last three points to go up 2/0.
“In the third, Ali Fathi was too good for Sharp – on this day, at least!”
20-year-old Ali Fathi is celebrating the 10th Tour final of his career – and his third this year.
Second seed Martin Knight ended former champion Eric Galvez’s run when he beat the unseeded Mexican 11-8, 11-9, 11-5 in 44 minutes.
“Both Knight and Galvez have speed to burn as they appear to be two of the quickest players in the tournament,” Birnie continued. “Already known for his spectacular comeback against Andrew Schnell in the quarter-finals, Knight went down 5-0 in the first and 7-1 in game two.
“Galvez was up 8-6 in game one before Knight rattled off six straight points to take the early 1/0 lead in games. In game two, down 7-1, he won 11 of 13 points to end game two. The crowd is almost thinking that coming back from behind is intentional!”
World No 50 Knight will be attempting to keep the trophy in New Zealand hands after the 2012 triumph by his compatriot Campbell Grayson. The 29-year-old from Auckland is marking the 13th Tour final of his career – and his fifth in the past three months!
