R2 : [2] Tarek Momen (Egy) 3-1 [12] Mazen Hesham (Egy) 8-11, 11-4, 11-6, 11-9 (41m)
Fast rallies. Short rallies. No real rhythm. Just magic coming from Mazen’s racquet, or a tin. Zig Zag squash I call it, when both go wild speed wise, no real deep shots, all in reflexes, flair, on the moment squash. Mazen is one of the kings of it. Just an example, you would say Karim Darwish, former number 1, mentor to Ali, promoter and squash director at Wadi Degla, has seen a few shots. Even HIM couldn’t believe the long shot boast something something Mazen used to take the first game!
You might not know but Mazen is doing his military at the moment, like all Egyptians men have got to do. So it means he is limited in his movements, and cannot play as much as he would like/need to be able to compete/sustain the pace at that level.
So he played a bit hide and seek with the ref who kept on asking him to play “quicker”. That didn’t do that well, or work that well actually! The funniest moment was on the last game, 10/8 match ball (Tarek hadn’t been able to close on his first attempt) and Mazen decided that it was a good moment to clean the court. Tarek went “oh yes, let’s take 5m now, shall we?”… I know it wasn’t funny, but it was really…
Mazen has a little genie in his racquet that makes him play incredible shots. Unfortunately, that genie cannot prevent him from doing a lot of errors, due to lack of fitness, and squash/matches fitness. Tarek will be very happy to get away in 4 as tomorrow, Joel awaits, yet again…
Tarek
It’s always a relief to win a tough match.
Against Mazen it is always unpredictable. There were so many things happening – at the beginning he wasn’t moving well, so I had to think about testing his movement or just assume nothing’s wrong and it probably cost me the first game.
I don’t think I made as many errors as yesterday, not sure if I’m so pleased with my performance today, I just hung in there. He makes things so random on court and he’s just so hard to keep up with what he’s doing. I just had to keep disciplined, of course I was attacking the front corners more than most players but to me that was a bit more disciplined when I needed it the most to get a few points and build up a lead, I had to be patient. I’m happy with that but I need to keep progressing and improving every day.
Joel is more physical and he doesn’t go for as many shots as Mazen. He gets to a lot of balls and he likes to keep the rallies long, it’s going to be a completely different match tomorrow. We’ve played each other far too many times now, I think almost every tournament we draw each other, so I know what to expect and I hope I can play my best tomorrow.
