R2: Zakaria breaks another record!!!

Posted on by

Mohamad Zakaria (EGY) 3-0 Ramit Tandon (IND)  11-7, 11-7, 11-3 (57m)

PSA report

Egypt’s 17-year-old Mohamad Zakaria reached his first Platinum event quarter-final after he needed just three games to down India’s talented shot maker Ramit Tandon to close out the afternoon session on day three of the tournament.

17-year-old Mohamad Zakaria became the youngest male player to reach a Platinum quarter final in the modern era.

Zakaria downed sixth seed and former World Champion Tarek Momen in round one, a milestone victory for the teenager. He continued his fine form in today’s match up with Ramit Tandon who was up against it from the very start of the match. The Egyptian kept the pace high and forced Tandon into many tough movements in the opening two games, tidying up loose balls from the Indian to win games one and two both 11-7.

Despite a brief break at the start of the third game due to a power cut, Zakaria motored on in his pursuit of a last-eight spot. Tandon had no answers to the Zakaria barrage as he took the game 11-3 to set up a meeting with either World # Paul Coll or Scottish #1 Greg Lobban.

Zakaria

“I think this win takes me into the top 20 for the first time and that’s huge for me. You know, when you have something in your mind all season and then you get closer and closer, it just gives you so much confidence and such a boost and I want more of that.

“Ramit has such good hands, I tried to play as tight as possible, if anything is left loose off the sidewalls you know he’s going to take it in. I was surprised today because he didn’t take it in as much as I thought and he hit a lot less errors than I thought too, so I had to win a lot of the points and I’m very glad to be through.

“I’m looking forward to playing either Paul or Greg in the quarters. This will be my first match on the glass in Egypt. I hope they have a great match later and I’ll be excited to take on the winner.”