R2: [9] Fares Dessouky (Egy) 3-2 [3] Karim Abdel Gawad (Egy) 11-6, 9-11, 3-11, 11-2, 11-3 (52m)
Happy to see Fares back at his best squash, moving well, hitting extremely hard, no I mean, extremely hard, and sticking to his game plan which was – let’s play as fast as possible and punish the front corners as much as possible.
Karim lost the first game – hold the press, won a very close second game, only just thought, he was up 10/7, taking the game 11/9, whizzed through the next one 11/3 in 7m.
But from that moment on seemed to not move at his best, I suspect his foot injury might have flared up after all that running and hammering from Fares, and the Alexandria man was just superb in the last two games, not letting Karim have a sniff at coming back in one his famous wins in 5….
Fares
I’m very happy to be through to the quarters.
It was a tough match, mentally and physically – he’s a very tough and talented player as everyone knows. I’m happy to be through and for the next match Diego and I usually have tough matches, the last time he won. Hopefully this time I play my best and win.
Both of us are very skilful players, we’re playing good squash and squash to watch. We are not just running around and it’s not just about fitness. Today, we gave the crowd a good match and for sure they enjoyed the level of squash they saw.
