(updated 27-jan-10 8:31 )    [DRAW/RESULTS]     [Also read: Rob Dinerman's Account]

Quarterfinals (bottom half)
Report from Martin Bronstein

MATTHEW AND ASHOUR ON COURSE FOR FINAL
While the four players on court tonight produced different styles of play in their quarter-final matches, there was a similar inevitability in both matches with Nick Matthew and Ramy Ashour displaying an invincibility.

Nick Matthew is now the world number two. (And let us pause so that I can correct an error in yesterday’s report. Karim Darwish is not the world number one. In fact after missing a couple of major tournaments he dropped to number five in the January rankings, replaced by Ramy Ashour who won the Saudi Tournament. If Matthew had won in Saudi, he would have been world number one and the same applied to Amr Shabana. It was a tournament awash with drama as well as money.) 

Matthew is the new  David Palmer: strong, disciplined, accurate and obdurate. In his match against  Wael el Hindi, he was the Indian Ocean to El Hindi’s glamourous liner.  And you know eventually, long after the luxury liner has disappeared, the Indian Ocean will still be there.  Watching Matthew apply his skill, strategy and pure athleticism, we all know that it is a matter of time before he takes the number one spot.

The Egyptian, as likeable as he is, does not have the mental strength to truly challenge the top six players. His movement is suspect, which is a polite way  of saying he gets in the way by failing to clear properly. Some of the worst matches I have witnessed for unnecessary bodily contact have involved el Hindi.

His only hope against Matthew was to use his flair at every opportunity in an effort to cut short the rallies. There was no way he could stay with the Englishman’s level of fitness and commitment. Rallying up and down the left wall was not a winning option but Matthew was so precise and tight, El Hindi rarely had the opportunity to kill the ball.

The first game was competitive and lasted 16 minutes to indicate that Matthew did not roll over his opponent. But as I indicated above, there was an inevitability about the results and even when El Hindi  fought back from 10-5 to 10-8 with the help of beautifully fashioned winners, there was still no doubt that  Matthew would get the 11th and winning point, which he got courtesy of his opponent’s error.

That was the extent of El Hindi’s mental strength. In the second game Matthew was into overdrive immediately and he simply ran away with the game, winning 11-3 in  just 11 minutes. El Hindi’s body language showed his rapidly waning opposition – he simply did not have the tools to combat the Matthew arsenal, especially his cool head. Many years ago, straight out of juniors, Matthew could be quite nasty – his insulting attitude to referees should have got him thrown out. All that has gone: he is known among his peers as one of the best prepared and most professional in his attitude. He has the supreme confidence that comes from such preparation and he no longer relies on the referee to give him points.

The third game took 17 minutes because there was a lot of El Hindi gamesmanship: discussions with the referee, a hurt foot, a bruised finger which necessitated a blood break for bandaging, and the mandatory conduct warning for dissent.

Matthew took it all in his stride and emerged  an 11-7 victor to notch up another 3/0 match and earn another crack at Ramy Ashour, the player who beat him in the Saudi Final, in the semi-final.

ASHOUR OUTLASTS THE FIGHTING FRENCH
Gregory Gaultier put up one helluva fight in his semi-final against the brilliant young Ramy Ashour, playing well enough to force a fifth game, but by which time  his effort dropped while Ashour seemed to up his game.  Yes, Ashour can hit outrageous winners at the least expected times, but Mon Dieu!  Gaultier also hit a hatful of winners and has a short game as good as anybody’s.

The first 17 minute game was explosive, at first bitty but then  a dazzling array of winners and losers – yes, losers can be dazzling too – made this compulsive viewing.  Ashour started with vigour, led 7-4, but Gaultier  played his way back with a combination of good length and diamond-cut winners. Ashour got to 10-9 but again Gaultier – who has held the number one spot remember – did not lay down and finished his comeback with a superb backhand drive to length to win 12-10.  Wow!

How long could this last?

Ashour  came out smoking, the winners and tight drives  earning a fast  10-4 lead. On two occasions Gaultier seemed to give up and gave away easy points but then once again showed his toughness and reeled off three points to get back to 10-7 and the hint of a surprise win but he finally made the mistake of putting the ball at shoulder height to Ashour’s backhand. Crack! Thwack! and it was sent cross court into he nick. Ashour loves that shot and must have won thousands of points with it. All this packed into eight minutes. Match tied1-1.

With the pressure off him Ashour let up and got a bit sloppy. Gaultier is far too good a player to  pass up that sort of opportunity and was now employing his favourite shot, a cross court, deeply cut so that once it leaves the front wall it doesn’t seem to come off the floor. (I think Jonathon Power invented it). Five or six times Ashour was caught out by the unexpectedness of this shot and even with his incredible speed of reaction, he was unable to do anything  but watch the ball roll away. Gaultier won it in 12 minutes, 11-7 to lead 2/1.

Well, we’ve read this script before.  Ashour thought the Egyptian equivalent of  Oh blimey! Or Zut Alors!  And once more came out  with his six guns ( AK 47’s ?) blazing and with four winners was quickly  5-3 ahead. He is now using an extreme hold before unleashing a bazooka drive, executed with a seemingly effortless flick of his wrist. How you can achieve such speed of shot with so little backswing is beyond my scientific ken.

He won that game 11-5 to tie the match at 2/2 and the packed hall was delighted to be treated to a fifth game. Gaultier’s length worsened, he went mental walkabout a couple of times giving away three easy points and found himself 8-3 down. It was Ashour’s turn to get careless, or perhaps too eager to finish it off and  two backhand drops found the tin to help Gaultier back into the game. He reached 6-8 with a perfect backhand straight nick but then his four-point run was brought to an end as Ashour  hit his favourite backhand cross court nick to reach 9-6. He finished the next rally with a cross court cut to reach match ball and then took the final point on a stroke as  Gaultier failed to clear his own drop shot at the right front corner. 

Ashour said afterwards that he had never seen Gaultier play so well (I have, many times) but aside from everything else, Ashour has youth on his side. And for us squash fans, that can only be good news.

RESULTS, 2010 Tournament of Champions, Round of 16   [Main Draw]

QUARTERFINALS
Tuesday:
[4] Nick Matthew (ENG) bt [8] Wael El Hindi (EGY) 11-8 11-3 11-7 (52 mins)
[5] Ramy Ashour (EGY) bt [2] Gregory Gaultier (FRA) 10-12 11-7 7-11 11-5 11-7 (70 mins)
(TOP HALF (Played Monday)
[1] Karem Darwish (EGY)  bt [7] David Palmer (AUS) 5-11, 11-4, 11-9 11-8 (63mins)
[6] James Willstrop (ENG) bt [3] Amr Shabana (EGY)  11-5, 11-7, 11-4 (33 mins)