SF: Ali empties Joel’s tank

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[1] Ali Farag (EGY) 3-1 [4] Joel Makin (WAL)  11-8, 8-11, 11-7, 11-7 (81m)

High quality. Very high quality. Both Joel and Ali played a superb squash that we loved to watch tonight.

I suppose the first game is already the turning point. Joel started on fire, taking the Egyptian by the throat, and worrying his camp greatly. 5/0, 7/3. The Welsh was so accurate, moving fast and controlling long rallies.

But the pace Joel likes to play, is comfortable to play at, is also what Ali dwells in and excels in. The slender Egyptian turned the tables, scoring 6 points on the trot from 3/7 to 9/7. Ali started challenging the ref, which he kept doing for a great part of the match, going to a “conduct warning for dissent” in the latter part… Unusual from the Egyptian.

Still, Ali keeps the momentum till the end of that opener, 11/8 in 22 long minutes.

Mind you, Joel was not happy with the decisions either, but was pretty unlucky with his reviews, and ran out of reviews at 2/2 in the second game, bless him. It didn’t prevent him from taking that close game, never more than a couple of points between them up to 8/8, closing it with three quick rallies, 11/8 in 19m, 10 winners for the Welsh, 7 for Ali, and not a single error between the two!

Another long game is that third, 16m, but Joel was making some uncharacteristic errors, 3. It doesn’t look much compared to ‘high percentage’ squash, but Joel is a ‘low percentage’, and the fact that he made that many errors was for me the sign that the hard work of “cat and mouse” Ali’s squash was starting to pay off for the Egyptian. From 7/7, it’s Ali 11/7. 6 winners each.

A funny moment at the start of that third, the ref is busy handling the tablet, and mistakes Joel challenge of the decision for an Ali one! I felt like in kindergarten, “it’s not me, ref, it’s HIM!”… Blessss.

The fourth sees a very tired Joel pushing and digging in. From 2/2, where the Golden Tiger made a “tired tin”, I could see him struggling to keep up with the 4 corners squash the Egyptian kept imposing. At 5/3, Joel took a long, very long time to serve, even going for the towel. Was he started to cramp? That’s what I felt but he never clearly showed it.

Ali turned the screw slowly and painfully in that last game. For 17m, Joel pushed his body over the limit, trying to slower the pace by lobbing as much as he could, but could only defend, having no say about the rallies anymore? And it’s 11/7 for the Egyptian, the match ending with an error from the Welsh, 17m of Chinese torture I felt…

 

Ali

“I don’t feel great, I like to keep my emotions a lot more bottled up than I showed today. But it’s because of the intensity and accuracy that Joel presented to me today, he is always very intense but I don’t think he was this accurate last season, that’s why he is knocking on the door of the top four.

“I shouldn’t have been as rattled as I was. It came out at the ref, at me, so I’m sorry for that. Squash wise was fine but emotionally, some work to do.

“Today has been a warmer day but the ball seemed to soften up a lot earlier today and that caught me off guard a little bit. As everyone as been saying, you have to adapt and I think I did that really well today.”