[5] Moustafa Elsirty (EGY) 3-0 Yassin Shohdy (EGY) 12-10, 13-11, 11-3 (39m)
Since April, Moustafa Elsirty has changed coach and is now working with Andrew Shoukry. It seems to work for the Tall Egyptian, as he managed to play 14m/15m first and second games, putting so much pressure on his younger opponent. The score tells you the story….
Moustafa
He didn’t have any game balls today which made my life easier…. But Yasin is so talented, very quick, he is an upcoming player, and he is a lefty as well, which makes him tricky to play.
I tried to make the first two games as long as possible, because his natural game is to play fast and short rallies. And if I made them longer, it could be a disadvantage for him. Obviously, it took a bit longer than I expected, but very glad with the win.
I’ve started training with Andrew for a couple of months now, and it’s going very well. I had some good results at the end of the season. We decided to change a lot of things during the summer, which we had time for, that was amazing. I changed my training to improve my physicality really, trying to be as fit as possible.
I was not happy with my physical game, I had an experience against Paul Coll at the British, I didn’t feel that fit against him – not that many people would find it comfortable against Paul! I didn’t like the level my physicality was at the time. And it was the biggest thing missing for me in that tournament.
Also, I tried to improve my basic game, my deep game, being more patient at the back instead of firing everything at the front like I used to.
Looking forward to tomorrow, going to try to have a solid game, improve game by game, match by match, and see how it goes.
[15] Yassin Elshafei (EGY) 3-0 Yannik Omlor (GER) 11-7, 11-7, 12-10 (30m)
Elshafei
I am sooo happy to win today, it’s really special to play here in front of my family, my friends, my team, so it feels like home, wait, it IS home!
Yannick is such a good player, he played so well today. I was trying to keep the rallies as long as possible, he is a lefty so I was trying to play everything on my forehand. I tried to cut all the errors as well, chuffed it worked!
It doesn’t matter who I play tomorrow, I’m just very excited to play!
