Declan James (ENG) 3-0 Karim El Hammamy (EGY) 11-6, 11-8, 11-4 (49m)
Very strange game that one.
Both Declan – who works with Nick Matthew for now 6 years – and Karim – who trains with Hesham El Attar – love to keep the ball going, while finding some lovely crisp winners.
But today, not a pipe from Dec, while Karim seemed to shoot himself in the brain by discussing every single decision with the ref. And in my opinion, that’s the turning point of the match…
After losing the first game, in 17 long minutes of hard and gruelling work, Karim went outside, banging a few things along the way, and refused the help of his sister. In case you live outside the Solar System, that’s the world number 1 Hania… I rest my case. He never asked for her help for the rest of the match, and I feel that shows how off the game he was. Self destruction comes to mind.
And that’s a shame, because he is doing the work, the hard training, the dedication to the sport.. What a shame to see him throwing away his chances.
Now, as for Declan, it’s the perfect match really. In front of Mum, Dad and Coach Nick, he played a “sans faute”, immaculate match, I counted 3 errors throughout. I could have missed a few but you see the pattern. He will be very happy with his opening match for sure…
Declan : A positive body language, and I wanted to make it a bit harder from the start, upping the pace.
Obviously, we had a 90m battle in Washington, it was just so hard. He is such a great mover, very fit, and I didn’t want to get into that medium pace 90m battle again. I have the energy, but it’s 50/50 and it’s hard, and it takes something out for the next round.
So I wanted to play more intensely, which I managed to do for the most part of the match. I woud get a few points lead, he would come back at me but I think I started and finished the game quite well.
His chatting to the ref gave me each time 20s to get my breath back, there was some tough stuff out there, it was very bouncy and very hot, it gave me a chance to recover but I want to think that I would have been able to recover anyway I think.
Nick was pushing me to get ahead in the score for a couple of points, as well as I could. Karim is very good when it’s level or when he is a point ahead, he is very stubborn, he keeps going. But when I got three points ahead at the end of the games, his head just dropped a little and he tooks the ball in the front of the court, so it was about trying to get that pressure from the start of each game and going from there.
Nick allowed me to get more aggressive on court, to play at a higher tempo, with more variation. I’ve always been good in the medium pace tempo, with a good rhythm, hard to break down, but that’s not enough to take on the top 10 guys. So I have to play with different paces, being more aggressive, otherwise, it can be a slow death! I can keep everyone on court for 90m but it’s actually how you are going to win those matches.
I’m playing Joel, again! Looking forward to it, we’ve played so many times this season already, that’s the 5th time or something, we train together, we are mates, it’s always good fun, you know there will be no nonsense, the squash is going to be brutally hard, we are both pretty strong guys, and it’s always a pleasure to play those kind of matches, and I’m going to go at it, for sure!
Haya Ali (EGY) 3-1 Hana Ramadan (EGY) 12-10, 5-11, 11-7, 12-10 (39m)
Haya : “Hana has already been a tough player for me to play, I expected a very tough match and that’s what I got so just happy to be through.
“I felt like I had leads at different points but then so did she but yeah I suppose I managed to play some of my best squash at the end of the game but just happy to be through.”
