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ATCO    [4] Gregory Gaultier bt [6] David Palmer
                            11/7, 3/11, 11/6, 11/2 (67m)
 ATCO    [1] Karim Darwish bt [8] Wael El Hindi
                            11/8, 11/7, 5/11, 6/11, 11/5 (78m)

 Prince   [7] Thierry Lincou bt [2] Amr Shabana
                           11/3, 11/9, 11/5 (37m)
 Prince   [6] James Willstrop bt [3] Ramy Ashour
                             7/11, 11/6, 11/8, 11/8 (54m)

Lincou & Willstrop
upset the seedings

The first day's play saw two upset results in the Prince group as Thierry Lincou and James Willstrop both beat their higher-seeded Egyptian opponents. No such problems in the ATCO group as top seed Karim Darwish and defending champion Gregory Gaultier moved to the top of the group.

Nothing's decided yet of course, but today's winners will sleep easier before Sunday's second round, which will be crucial ...

Sunday's Matches:
14.00  Gregory Gaultier v Wael El Hindi
15.00  Amr Shabana v James Willstrop
17.00  Karim Darwish v David Palmer
18.00  Ramy Ashour v Thierry Lincou
    

"I’m not 100% there physically, just recovering from bronchitis, but tactically, I thought I played smarter than I did in new York.

"Frustrated though, I needed the third, if I get that game, the pressure is on him, and who knows. But when the stop start game started in the middle of the third, all those discussions, changes of mind from the ref, the ball went dead, and although I thought I was back in there at 6/7, he went for a few shots, ball dead, and I couldn’t do much…"

[4] Gregory Gaultier bt [6] David Palmer
          11/7, 3/11, 11/6, 11/2 (67m)

Gaultier starts his defence
Richard Eaton reports

Greg Gaultier could have not given us a much better start to the defence of his Super Series finals title. The champion went through his complete repertoire of extraordinary flairy strokes, mixed in with passages of orthodox, disciplined line and length – almost as though it were two players in one – while beating David Palmer, a former holder of the title.

Then the Frenchman provided moments of farce and high comedy, interspersed with flashes of anger at refereeing decisions, followed it by allowing an early advantage to slip, as though it was obligatory to create a drama out of a match he sometimes dominated, and concluded it with a rush, hurtling through the fourth game in a 11-7, 3-11, 11-6, 11-2 win over the Australian.

It is hard to watch matches between these two without remembering the World Open final of 2006, arguably the most remarkable of the lot, and won by Palmer after saving five match points, and there were a few patterns reminiscent of that classic.

There were the tight top left corner exchanges, Palmer's phases of insistent volleying, decisions frequently and noisily contested, and passages of play when it seemed Gaultier would get right on top, which, until the end, he never quite did.

But now Palmer was perhaps physically not quite as strong as he was then, while Gaultier looks to be in his best shape he has ever been in the early part of a year, having worked for five months with a new team, and often he says “on different things from before.”

Palmer nevertheless played a good match. He never quite recovered from Gaultier's brilliant run of five points from 5-4 in the first game, but took his chance well in the second, when his opponent strangely faltered. Then he stepped up the pressure, took the ball earlier when he could and levelled it impressively at one game all.

It was amidst a flurry of arguments in a staccato and fragmented third game that Palmer gradually lost the edge, though he always fought hard and certainly gave as good as he got with the words.

One bit of verbal jousting occurred at 5-5 in the third when Gaultier's drive was incorrectly called down, and then on appeal it was called good. First Gaultier argued shrilly, then Palmer came out of the door and argued that he had stopped when the “down” call was made and that a let should be awarded, not a point to Gaultier.

It seemed that the dispute would go on and on, which caused the referee to ask Gaultier, a little desperately perhaps, if he wanted to replay the point too. He said “no!!” so forcefully it made some of the crowd giggle. For a moment it seemed that disruption might become pandemonium, until Palmer decided to play on.

He was clearly still not pleased, however, which may have contributed to another outbreak of arguing by both men with Gaultier leading 7-6, after which Palmer was told he risked a code-of-conduct warning.

Fortunately humour was rarely far away either. Gaultier brought chuckles with a curious little “aaagh” noise at one refereeing decision, and then loud laughter when a lob at 10-6 was called out, then called in again, but not before he had left the court as if the first game were over. “If you're not sure, why call it?” he said.

And then, when Palmer disputed the penalty stroke with which Gaultier eventually did win the game, Gaultier was out of the door again, this time calling: ”that other ball was out anyway.”

But referees are not too much different to players: both make mistakes. Except that Gaultier at the moment is atoning for his with remarkable skill and speed. “I feel sharp; I think I'm playing well,” he said. And ominously so, it seems.

DAVID BETTER…
Framboise reports

When those two played in New York, I never doubted the Frenchman would win after the first game, whereas today, despite the fact that the Australian is getting back from a bad chest infection, I thought he really put Greg under more pressure. He was more present at the front, and God the Marine can get on that ball fast side to side…

The third was absolutely vital. Greg seemed to have the ascendancy after they stayed a while at 5/5, and after a little discussion with the refs David's concentration was a bit off.

But at 6/7, the former World Champion was really coming back into the match. A few more discussions, a stunning rally that Greg ended with a superb backhand volley lob that sailed over David, despite his great height. That rally took a lot out of David, and the Frenchman finished the game quickly.

David was never in the fourth physically, we could see how the legs were not as strong as he would have liked, and a delighted Greg was raising his arms in the air. It was not a classic, but it was hard enough, thank you very much…

"The first match is always difficult, especially when you're first on court in a tournament like this.

"Usually you're trying to find your marks but you can't build up here, you have to play 100% from the first point and take every match as a final.

"The first was pretty quick, the ball was pretty dead, but I rushed to the front too soon in the second, he was attacking and volleying more. I put that game in the bin and went back to how I was playing in the first.

"I didn't get the best decisions in the third but I just got on with it, kept my mouth shut and kept my concentration and that's how I won.

"I'm really happy with how I played, it's been five months since I changed my team and changed a few things, the training has been going really well and I'm playing fluidly with no pressure."

[7] Thierry Lincou bt [2] Amr Shabana
                11/3, 11/9, 11/5 (38m)

Shabana's comeback
suffers a jolt
Richard Eaton reports

Thierry Lincou, the former world number one, caused the first upset of the Super Series finals when he brought down Amr Shabana, the man who stood for 30 months at the top of the rankings until the start of this year.

But although Lincou's 11-3, 11-9, 11-5 win confounded the rankings, it can hardly be deemed a great surprise given the experience and and mastery of the Frenchman, and the recent tribulations of the Egyptian.

It was Shabana's first match since a freak knee injury sustained in the gym two months ago caused him to withdraw mid-match in both the first two Super Series tournaments of 2009 and he looked a little less certain of himself.

On the other hand, Lincou produced exactly the kind of performance he claims he needs these days – a quicker start than he sometimes gets, bolder attempts at taking the ball early, and an economic use of movement.

“He was struggling a little but I have great respect for him,” Lincou admitted generously, and then played along with the slightly un-gallant jokes about needing to reach the final because his wife had gone shopping in London.

“Actually I need to win it,” he said, though he left it nicely unclear as to whether this is to offset the alleged shopping spree or because he needs the success for himself.

Shabana claimed there is now nothing wrong with his knee and that he only needed matches to get back to what he was – in which case everyone had better watch out.



He looked as though he was getting seriously into the contest in the second game, but once he missed his chance of taking it, he fell away again. Overall there were a few too many errors from him and a feeling of lack of confidence – a pretty rare thing for the great Amr Shabana.

But Lincou is a more urgent volleyer and a more assertive attacker when he wants to be these days. He shot straight into a lead and made an early statement with a cut-off volley into the nick which rolled dead, carried him to 6-1 and made the crowd roar their appreciation.

Shabana scored with a neat drop in the top left corner to get to 3-7 but then Lincou found time and room to make four winners in a row, three of them in the front court.

The second game looked as though it might turn the match on its head. Shabana earned a penalty stroke to get to 3-3, reached 6-4 with a forehand cross court to an excellent length, and then got to 8-5 with a typical drop-disguised kill combination.

Had he pushed on then his belief may have come flooding back, but an amazing dive by Lincou seemed to help him get back into the swing again. He made it to get out of the way of the ball, and got up and went on to win the rally, causing laughter and applause, and generating another little wave of momentum for himself.

At 9-9 Shabana put a volley drop into the tin, showed his irritation with himself with a little gesture and muttered a few words. He may have felt that when Lincou capitalised with a strident volley kill on the next rally, to pinch the second game, that his best chance had gone.

The third game saw Shabana break a string, and make the crowd giggle with something he said to the referee as he came out of the court. It continued with a loud yell when he hit the tin to go 3-5 down, and with another Lincou spectacular – a fall as he made a drive which hurtled to the back for a winner, obviating any need to leap up quickly.



It finished quickly after that, and Lincou can start dreaming of a final if he beats James Willstrop tomorrow. Such is the popularity of the gentleman from Reunion Island the crowd would probably even forgive him for beating the only Englishman.
  

"I’m not injured, I just got that wobbly feeling now. But I’m out of matches, and the standard is very high, to play the top eight players, and it’s not easy to compete.

"I’m trying to play well, but it doesn’t come just by wanting it, you need the work as well. I know I can do it, I just need more time."

"Today, I tried to stay as patient as I could, because even if I knew he had problems moving to the front, well, moving at all, really, I couldn’t afford to give him any opportunity to counter attack or to cut me off. So I had to stay extremely accurate at the back, and played pretty tight during the whole match…

"What Shabana has achieved in his career so far is quite unreal, not to mention his three years at the top of the world rankings, he is a true champion, and I have a tremendous respect for him, like all of us.

"But I know what he is going through, I’ve recovered from injury myself not too far ago, I know what it is….

Playing here is fantastic for us, it’s so good to have a new location, and such a prestigious one, and I hope that this is only the beginning of a whole new era, that Squash will grow, and that it’ll become Olympic as well…"

SHABANA NOT
AT HIS BEST
Framboise reports

There is one thing you can't do against Thierry Lincou, give him time. If you give him space to adjust his shots, he then can become the “TitiTight” as Shabana likes to call him. The only chance you’ve got to derail the precision of the Lincou mechanic is to twist and turn him.

Unfortunately, we all know that our Prince of Egypt, our former number one, the True Champion of this century has been crippled with a knee injury for months now.

He says that he doesn’t feel the pain. I doubt it. I could see him having to decide very early on where the ball was going to go, and commit, and anticipate. Aware of that, Thierry was delaying his shots as much as he could, counter-attacking more than usual, and surprising the Egyptian far more than usual.

As he said to me in our last interview, "it’s funny, last year, my head was not on the game, and I was winning everything. And this year, I’m so motivated, but my body won’t let me”.

MASSIVE MATCH
Framboise reports

I don’t know why, but I feel that every time Karim is playing Wael, he puts himself under a tremendous amount of pressure. I was there when Karim lost in the first round of the worlds in Cairo. I was there when again he lost in the Sky Petrosport last summer, and he just couldn’t play, petrified with the pressure, and the “need to win” situation that he created in his brain.

And today, yet again, Karim should have won easily 3/0. But he was so keen to make it short, so keen to win it fast, he burnt himself with a fast pace that cost him a lot in the third. Once Wael could feel the opening, he was like all Egyptians on the court, you give them the little finger, and it’s an open door to run away with the match!

The fourth was massive, even if Wael seemed to take an excellent start, 5/2, he was soon caught up 5/6, then 7/7. Wael refocused, the rallies became shorter, and in a few seconds, we were all level at 2/2.

But if Karim had a bit of wandering in the latter part of the match, he came back with all his neurones well connected. The turning point of the match was actually a massive, intense, incredible, endless rally at 2/1 for Karim.

“Wael is in the red”, murmured a player next to me. Yes, from that moment on, Karim was playing with the mouse Wael….

Still, this was the match of the day so far, and those two “gladiators”, as Robert Edwards, the voice of squash, called them, got a very deserved standing ovation from a delighted crowd.

"It’s so hard when you don’t have the habit of playing at that level anymore, you have a big difference between playing the top four and the rest of the world! It’s so difficult when you play at that rhythm, to try and break it, to try and change the negative in positive.

"Karim has had a very good spell, and he is playing extremely well at the moment. Today, he fought back in the fifth, all credit to him. But I played too fast in the first two games, and I paid for it in the fifth. That’s the energy I missed at the end. So, it’s bad to come out with a loss, but it’s good to learn a lesson from it.

"We still have two matches to play, and I think that all the players are going to play better and better every day. This was a good match, and I hope the crowd enjoyed it…."

[1] Karim Darwish bt [8] Wael El Hindi
           11/8, 11/7, 5/11, 6/11, 11/5 (77m)

The number one gets a long run
Richard Eaton reports

It's new territory for Karim Darwish. Being world number one and up there to be shot at is very different from coming up on the rails and snatching the top spot at the tail end of the year.

But Darwish isn't making a bad job of it on the early evidence of the Super Series finals, for he repelled a splendid fight-back by his compatriot Wael El Hindi, the compatriot who beat him in four games in the final of the Petrosport Open in Cairo in July.

Now he won 11-6, 11-7, 5-11, 8-11, 11-5 in 77 minutes of well worked and intelligently crafted rallies, supplemented by wonderful movement, and great sportsmanship.

“He is one of my best friends,” said Darwish. “All credit to him for the way he came back at the end,” said El Hindi, though they didn't spare each other much when they were battling for advantage.



Once Darwish left the court to contest as decision and was told to “go back” by the referee, whereupon El Hindi came out instead to give his views on what had happened instead, causing amusement and consternation in about equal measure.

It was notable that Darwish, who used to appear too tense to do himself full justice, and sometimes still seems to, did smile on a number of occasions, which may hint at the mind-change which has helped him.

He seemed so much in control in the first two games that El Hindi, who was once warned by the referee about his comments, seemed to be growing frustrated.

But Darwish was a little looser early in the third game, and lost some of his accuracy, and from 3-2 up slipped to 3-7 down, helping El Hindi get back into the match. In the fourth game the man who had been the last player to make the cut into the Super Series finals began to look the more likely winner.

El Hindi led 6-2, and after Darwish got back to 7-7, the world number one was denied a chance to get to 8-8 by a let decision which surprised him so much that he dropped his racket and placed his hands on his head.

Darwish thought he should have had a penalty point. “Not quite”, said the referee, and suddenly Darwish had failed to take get game too, El Hindi finding three good winners to level at two games all.

But the pace remained high, and El Hindi was gradually feeling it, while Darwish's movement remained good. Darwish also won two amazing rallies, at 3-1 and 6-1, during which both men went up and back, retrieving and attacking, and which did much to restore the favourite's dominance.

After that it was just left to Darwish to speak to the crowd and to give thanks for his marriage last year, which appears to have lifted his squash to new levels. He may though be getting tired of repeatedly having to say so. Winning, though, Darwish has not tired of.

"For the past two times, when we played in Egypt, he beat me, so I’m really focused when I play Wael! He is so hard to play, he is so gifted, his squash and his tactics are excellent, even if it’s not easy to get a let out of him!

"We’ve known each other since we were seven years old, it’s so hard to play him on the first day…

"He plays very tight, very accurate squash, so I had to be very accurate too. But in the first two games, I spent too much energy, so I lost a bit of focused in the third and fourth, mostly because I was a bit tired…

"In the fifth, there was a crucial point, and I think that was when he really got tired…

"Becoming world number one is any squash player's dream come true. I’ve been married for a year now, and it’s obviously agreeing with me…"

[6] James Willstrop bt [3] Ramy Ashour
                 7/11, 11/6, 11/8, 11/8 (54m)

Willstrop beats the world champion
Richard Eaton reports

James Willstrop scored one of the finest wins of his career to beat world champion Ramy Ashour in four games and to give himself a real chance of making the finals unexpectedly before a home English crowd.

The Yorkshireman is renowned as a brilliant shot-maker, but he has rarely produced a greater number of inventive strokes or survived as many fast, creative rallies as he did in winning 7-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-8 against the young Egyptian.

Even more remarkable is that Willstrop came from behind after having endured an indifferent spell of form recently by his excellent standards. He did it by surviving a fiercely punishing early pace in which the first two games lasted only 24 minutes, by pushing up the court to volley, and by unleashing a spate of wrong-footing drives and volleys, coupled with treacherously tight, clinging drops.



“I don't know if this is a defining moment,” he said. “I don't know if there is one – it's more series of moments and days and hours which make you what you are. Tonight's win is abut an awful lot of time spent with the people who are close around me.”

For a while it seemed that the outcome would go the same way as the other four encounters, which Ashour has won. The world champion set off at a tremendous pace, launching some fierce drives which often had Willstrop plunging around, and moving rapidly from 4-3 to 8-3, and then from 8-5 to 10-5, finishing with a hustling cross court drive which forced Willstrop to snatch his volley and put it into the tin.

But from 3-3 in the second game Willstrop began to score more often with tight drops at the front, and then to cope better with the pace, dictating it more himself, and gradually becoming inspired as he moved into the lead.

One volley drop sequence which ended with a neat winner by him got the crowd noisily involved, and that further increased Willstrop's adrenalin and lifted his confidence.



A backhand fast trickle drop, hurrying the ball round the top right corner, got him to one game all, and when he came from 2-5 to 8-5 with a run of wonderful rallies in the third game, pushing Ashour short and then dragging him long repeatedly, it became evident that he could win.

Ashour, often playing superbly himself, got back to 7-8, at which stage Willstrop produced a fast boast winner – rocketing the ball off the side wall from a deep position - another fast trickle at the front, and a cut-off volley drop, all three of which went for winners.

That put him two games to one up, and soon he was making impressive progress in the fourth game as well, reaching 3-0, then 4-1, and then going from 5-2 to 8-2, all with winners in rallies which had the spectators shouting themselves hoarse.

Much of the time Ashour had been too much on the defensive, but now he made a brave and intelligent push, taking over the attacking role, and coming from 5-9 to 8-9. It was then that Willstrop showed his gritty qualities, hanging on and retrieving hard, and coaxing just enough errors out of his opponent to get across the finish line.

Willstrop did once beat another famous Egyptian, Amr Shabana, in the world team finals to help England clinch the title, but that was four years ago, and one suspects the standard of all these players has risen since then. Whether this is now a bit of a breakthrough for Willstrop will be interesting to see.
 

"This match was a bit of a hard shock to the system… I know that everybody is talking about our New York matches, which were good, and very entertaining. But tonight, I think I was more focused, not as carefree maybe. Because, although you want to attack and stay close to him, you need to be on your guard, as he plays faster than any other player, and in a split second, will come up with a shot out of nowhere.

"I was just playing a bit more steady, it was not rocket science though, I didn’t go for drastic changes, but if you flick the ball around like he does, it’s a bit of squash suicide. Or if you want to do it, you’d better be bleeping good at it, because he is the best in the world at that….

"Nick Matthew has been an inspiration for me, as I played him a lot recently, and the way he came back after he was out for injury is such an example for us all. So, I just kept on repeating to myself that things could be worse, and that I had to keep having faith on myself…

"It’s a series of moments, of hours, of days that make you who you are, and the success tonight is in fact the result of hours of hard training, and listening to people, like the two people that spoke with me just before the match. It doesn’t just happen. You’ve got to make it happen."

"Tonight, he played better than I did, and he had more appetite for victory than me…"

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