R1: Abhay stuns the crowd and Aly 3/2..

Posted on by

Abhay Singh (IND) 3-2 Aly Abou Eleinen (EGY)  9-11, 11-8, 3-11, 11-4, 11-8 (65m)

What a match.

In front of a crowd that was logically supporting their man – who usually does very well in Gouna – Indian Abhay Singh played a superb gutsy performance today. I noted that interestingly enough, it was not Hesham Attar coaching Aly, with whom Aly was training for a few years, but it was Karim Darwish, Aly playing now for his club Wadi Degla. No

I arrived in the middle of the 4th, and the Egyptian seemed tired, opening the court, allowing the Indian to come back from 2/1, 11/4 in 9m.

But in the 5th, the writing seemed to be on the wall, the Egyptian truly dominating and looking very good out there, 6/3, 8/4. Did he relax a bit? Did he got tired like in the previous game? Not sure. But one thing is sure, he tinned 5 shots in the 7 following points, losing the game and match, 11/8 in 16 long minutes it felt. Abbhay was just too strong, too patient, and too structured at the end of the match…

Abhay : I got a lot of confidence from winning at home in a tournament where I was top seed. I took that seeding very seriously, I wanted to show why I am number one in my country.

But then, it’s not about being number one in the country only, it’s about doing well in big events as well, as our previous Indian players have done. They didn’t come here to only play round one, they got very high, number 10 in the world, and I don’t want a big gap in Indian squash, I want to be one of the players from India to represent our country on the glasscourt. I’m working towards that, and I’m slowly chipping away at it.

It was not only mental, but also that I could stay strong in long rallies. And it paid off. When we were playing long rallies, it was about who was going to keep the ball off the tin. That was the mentality. When he was very close to beating me, I thought for him to beat me, he has to keep fighting, keep fighting, and I made it very hard: that mentality paid off. Happy to see that the work is coming through.