R2: Gawad wins a 3/2 against Soliman… Hold the Press!

[3] Karim Gawad (EGY) 3-2 Youssef Soliman (EGY)  5-11, 14-12, 8-11, 11-8, 11-9 (109m)

Let me put it this way: if I had a dollar for every decision in the match, I’ll be paying all my debts. And that’s a lot.

More seriously, those two are very good friends. But they seem to find the middle of the court not big enough for the two of them. They are not afraid to play bumper cars with each other.

During the match, Karim developed a niggle in his foot and received quick icing and spray during the time-outs. There were many, many, MANY stoppages during the match, a lot of discussions, and as usual, Karim kept the suspense up to the end, 1/0 down, 2/1 down, and winning a ridiculously tough and fast paced match in 5.

Who knew.

Karim : “It was a very tough match, especially when I saw my match move to the traditional court.

“I always have this thing in my head against Youssef that he’s always good at coming from behind. Today, when I was down, I knew that I had to try to fight back and luckily I managed to win 11-9 in the fifth.

“I didn’t expect to be going over 100 minutes, but of course at the end we were both tired and it was about who was stronger mentally at the end of the match, and try top not show any fatigue. Both us did very well with this, and as you saw at the end of the match I started cramping. I’m very happy and very pleased to get through to the next round.”