[8] Youssef Soliman (EGY) 3-0 Patrick Rooney (ENG) 11-9, 15-13, 11-3 (49m)
Ali Farag talks about his new life and Youssef
I always wanted to stay involved with the sport, but very mildly, and when I call Youssef to tell him I was retiring, and he told me let’s work together. I replied ‘let’s things settle down and think about it.’
I told him ‘I was not going to be as committed as you would like a coach to be, because I’m very busy with the family and the work – that I don’t know about yet – and he said ‘I’m ready for it, as long as you play with me twice a week and watch me once a week, that would be good for me.’
So I took him on board, AND I’M LOVING IT!
It’s very stressful. Not the right word. I’m learning a lot, like when I was a player and I first arrived on the tour. You don’t know what to expect, and so many things are understood naturally, but now I’ve got to dissect them down to let him perceive it. And sometimes, the way you understand something is not the way another person is going to understand it.
I was actually talking to James [Willstrop] to get his advice, and also I talked with Karim Darwish a lot, and I told him that it was a lot harder than I thought it was, and that I underappreciated him before because I didn’t realise it was that hard. But I’m loving it.
We are learning together, but the first thing I told him: you are in the driver’s seat. He is the owner of the project, and I’m here to help. And I couldn’t have found a better person to do it with.
Youssef
When I saw the name Patrick to play from the qualifications, I knew he was one of the toughest one I could get. He beat me last time, about 3 years ago, and I know how tough he is, how hard he is working to get back into it.
Patrick is a good squash player, he just needs discipline, you think at first, but actually, I found today that he has really a good discipline. He hangs in there, lobbing, defending, he’s not just about an attacking game. He has a good variation of winners, he was defending really well, trying to break my movement with lobs and angles.
So I’m very happy to get through this one, especially withe the first two games, there were really close two games.
