[8] Youssef Soliman (EGY) 3-0 [16] Dimitri Steinmann (SUI) 11-5, 11-9, 11-5 (46m)
Powerful squash, ridiculous rallies at times – an endless one at 3/0 for Youssef in the opener that got a ‘I love it’ from coach Ali Farag….
The score in the first game doesn’t tell the story AT ALL. Dimitri pushed Youssef so hard, but was at the wrong end of those hard rallies. 5/1, 6/2 for Youssef, 7/4, 11/5. Dimitri giving away 6 points (5 errors and a stroke), Youssef only one error.
The second game is crucial. The Swiss is in control, 5/2 but seems to push the self-destruct button, finding the tin again and again, 3 errors in 4 points, and two more errors plus a stroke to Youssef, and the Egyptian finds himself 10/6.
Actually, Dimitri was fuming about that stroke. He didn’t agree at all, as it was a conduct stroke for taking the line of his opponent. “Where should I go, Jason, just show me where should I go? The ball is in the middle, where should I go?” “We’ll talk about it afterwards, for now, please play on”.
For the next rallies, Dimitri was “punishing the ref and himself”, as an elderly Egyptian Squash Fan told me. And he was right. Mind you, the Swiss was ‘not playing’, just lifting the ball lob wise, taking all pace off. But it worked, funnily enough. “The fact he is not playing is working for him” told me the same gentleman. “He should keep on not playing!!!”
Bless.
Still, with an ace, Soliman clinches the game, crucial, to lead 2/0, 11/9 in against 15m.
The third, just like the first one, is very much hard work with not much to show from the Swiss. 6/3, 9/4, 11/5 in 11m.
As he exited the court, calmly, Dimitri went to the ref and said, “can you please now show me on the court where should I go”….
Youssef
Dimi has been there, he’s always that type of player who stays with you, who’s solid and can have different plans, as you can see, there’s his Plan A which is playing his squash.
He’s physical and now he’s lifting, he has lots of variations,. Before, it was all kind of hit and run and being a solid player. Now he has more tactics into his game. But now, as you saw, I knew he had this type of game, it’s a stop-start thing, which is, actually it’s very useful to get through in three games with this stop-start as well.
Towards the end, I feel like I was okay with dealing with his plan, his tactics, and then we went to this stop-start.
That’s something that’s very crucial for me to get to the next level; you need to to adjust and adapt to this game, stop and start. And he’s annoying – not in a bad way, annoying in a good way – that he’s stop start and then he knows what he wants to do.
It’s good that he didn’t catch me today. And we played in London, and it was the same. We played in Pittsburgh, it was kind of the same case. But I did enjoy this match. I did enjoy it, and I’m looking forward to whoever’s next, Aly or Mostafa.
