[4] Diego Elias (PER) 3-0 [7] Tarek Momen (EGY) 11-5, 6-2 rtd (21m)
What a forking shame… Last two times those two play, the win went to Tarek, against the odds, ranking wise. And today, you could see from the start there was no love lost between them, Tarek was here to win, and made it pretty clear, territorially wise!
The Egyptian was playing his exquisite attacking feathery squash, and supported by the crowd – was damaging Diego’s confidence, although the Peruvian was finding his own superb short shots.
But by the end of the game, Tarek started to run a bit less, and asked for the physio (3m self injury) between games. And when he came back, he touched his glute the way I saw Ramy Ashour do so many times, and I knew it was match over. Hamstring, during the first game…
Diego : “I wasn’t really thinking about him to be honest. I was just thinking about my game. I knew there was something wrong when he asked for the physio but I didn’t notice anything in the first game. It’s never nice to win this way and hopefully he will be okay soon.
“He’s been on Tour for so long, you can’t really see him slowing down. He just played five games at a really high level a few days ago so he’s obviously still at the top of the game and hopefully he can get better soon.
“It’s always a battle against Ali. He’d beaten me so many times until I got that win on this court in the World Champs so I’m just looking forward to another big battle against him.”
