R3: Joel feels good and is ready for the Diego test…

Joel : I feel I’m in a good place. I probably didn’t have many matches coming into Sweden, but Sweden was good, and it’s been the same thing here.

My body’s feeling good, which I’m happy about, so I’m enjoying every match and trying to build on a little bit of momentum. That would be nice, because if you want to be in the top bracket, you need continuity in your playing and training, and I’ve built that back in.

The summer was hard. I was getting myself right, so I didn’t do much until then, but I’m building it back in.

I thought my form’s been good over the last two days. I had a good match with Timmy, and a good match with Auguste, who played well, actually. It was a good hour. He’s put some good patterns together against me before, in the French League finals, so I was expecting him to be good, and he was very solid. Fair play to him. It was a good, hard hour.

And this is what I want now: a quarter-final with a rest day in between. It’s a good test against Diego. Outside of Qatar, he was in unbelievable form at the end of last season, and his squash was quality.

So that’s the test I want, to see where I’m at. I’m looking for a good push, and I’m looking forward to it.