RESULTS: JP Morgan Tournament of Champions, New York, USA
Quarter-finals (lower half of the draw):
[4] Nick Matthew (ENG) bt [8] Wael El Hindi (EGY) 11-8, 11-4, 11-7 (52m)
[5] Ramy Ashour (EGY) bt [2] Gregory Gaultier (FRA) 10-12, 11-7, 7-11, 11-5, 11-6 (70m)
The world's top two squash players will contest one of the semi-finals of the JP Morgan Tournament of Champions after Ramy Ashour and Nick Matthew - from Egypt and England, respectively - prevailed in contrasting quarter-finals of the $97,500 PSA World Tour Super Series event at Grand Central Terminal in New York.
World No1 Ramy Ashour and defending champion Gregory Gaultier, the world number four from France, treated the packed and rapt audience in Grand Central Terminal to a match of extraordinary artistry in their 70-minute joust. In the end, the prodigious talent of the 22-year-old from Cairo was just too much for the Frenchman whose squash skills and court creativity are also quite considerable.
"Greg was sharp and hungry tonight," the fast talking Ashour said after the match. "I think he is stronger than before. But I played the crucial points well, which you have to do if you are going to win at this level."
Hungry and eager to defend his title after an enforced year-end layoff due to injury, Gaultier came out shooting, winning the first game in a tiebreak. Ashour responded by picking up his game and sharpening his focus to win the second, but was rebuffed in the third as Gaultier covered all corners of the court with ease and fluidity.
The fourth and fifth games were marked by several long rallies and a full array of pace and shot-making by each player, but it was Ashour who played the big points best when it counted, winning the match 10-12, 11-7, 7-11, 11-5, 11-6.
Several former tour competitors who were part of the capacity crowd could be seen shaking their head in amazement at the shots that Ashour was hitting for winners. "Ramy is doing things with the racquet that we have never seen before," said Jay Prince, publisher of the US Squash Magazine. "He is stretching the boundaries of the game, changing the way it is played."
One of the Ashour innovations on display during the match was his “cobra” grip, where his hands are spread out along the racquet handle. "It is a cobra grip," explained Ashour, "because it can come back and bite quickly."
"There were times out there tonight when I felt like I was playing the final," Ashour added later. "But tomorrow will be even better," he continued, alluding to his semi-final line-up with world No2 Nick Matthew.
In the evening’s first match where the Englishman took on Egypt's eighth seed Wael El Hindi, it was all Matthew as he controlled the match from start to finish. After being down 2-3 in the first game, Matthew did not relinquish the lead for the rest of the match, winning 11-8, 11-4, 11-7.
"I felt that I was able to keep the ball really tight on the backhand wall where Wael normally controls the pace," explained the 29-year-old from Sheffield. When asked whether he felt as comfortable as he looked out on the ToC glass court, Matthew replied: "I love the atmosphere here. The crowd is brilliant. Each year when I come back, it takes a little getting used to in the early rounds, because there’s more noise and commotion than at other tournaments - but once you adjust, it actually gives you more energy."
In the Elite Junior Women’s Challenge between the two top ranked US junior women that kicked off the evening of play, Amanda Sobhy of Seacliff, Long Island, defeated Connecticut’s Olivia Blatchford, 12-10, 11-8, 8-11, 11-2.
Semi-final line-up:
[1] Karim Darwish (EGY) v [6] James Willstrop (ENG)
[5] Ramy Ashour (EGY) v [4] Nick Matthew (ENG)