[1] Ali Farag (EGY) 3-0 [5] Paul Coll (NZL) 11-7, 11-6, 11-6 (36m)
What a match for Ali. Last time he was in this court, two days ago, a family drama nearly led him to retire (as his wife did the match before him). We were wondering how he would be on court today.
I hope that Paul won’t mind what I’m about to say but it was a bit of a squash lesson today I felt. Never at any point I felt Ali worried, or under pressure or running out of ideas. He was controlled the rallies that he kept fairly short, and pushed Paul to attack from difficult positions, forcing a few uncharacteristic errors out of the NZ racquet.
Paul didn’t much wrong, he was just outplayed, and as their last encounter was in the British Open semis where Ali only won 11/7 in the 5th, 77m, in one of the toughest/incredible match I saw – costing probably the title to Ali, this was a bit of a surprise I have to say.
Today, Ali just too good…
Ali
“I think I played really well. We had a game plan together, myself, Karim Darwish, Nour and also my brother Wael. They reminded me to mix it up because Paul is a very good player when he gets into a rhythm. I tried to disrupt that in a way and I think I did that well. I’m really pleased to be through in three.
I know a lot of players have already mentioned it numerous times, but I want to thank CIB and the entire institution for supporting us all the way through. It’s something we are really grateful for and thanks to Amr Mansi and I-Events for bringing this back. You see so many pictures of this venue and you can never get bored of it.”
