QF: Mostafa 3-0 Aly
[4] Mostafa Asal (EGY) 3-0 Aly Abou Eleinen (EGY) 11-2, 11-4, 11-5 (39m)
Aly will be disappointed with his performance today. But the score in the first game in particular doesn’t reflect how hard those two worked! 15m for such a low number of points..
But if in the first game, Aly had a game plan, from the second onwards, Mostafa immaculate performance prevent him to have any incidence on the match.
The third, the head was gone.
One little note. I was as ever impressed by Hesham Attar, coach to Aly and so many others. He stayed calm and composed at all times, focused on his player, did not overdo the support for his player, and was just present and concentrated on the match, never reacting to a ref decision.
Not raving against the ref. Not parasite movement or coaching. Impeccable behaviour. I know a few coaches/parents who could take a leaf or two from him.
Mostafa
“It’s unbelievable. I’m happy with my squash, happy with my performance as well. Lots of difficulties, couldn’t find my game. I’d been trying to find the balance between the aggression and being calm on court, not panicking or trying to win at any cost. Trying to play good squash, this is the result I’ve been aiming for for a while.
“I’m happy with the performance, Aly is a very tough opponent. I’ve known how dangerous he is since I was very young. It was always 3-2s in the under 15s and he was beating all the juniors. We were all lucky that he went to college, but he came back with lots of dangers.
“I’m happy for him, he’s had some great upsets and I couldn’t be more proud of him.
“Paul [Coll] is a very tough opponent. In Egypt it’s a bit different, playing here with the crowd and support behind me helps.
“But Gawad, when you see how he played today, I’m scared of Gawad and how he performed. It’s going to be a really enjoyable match and I’m super happy to be playing him once again.”
