[5] Youssef Ibrahim (EGY) 3-2 Mohamed Abouelghar (EGY) 7-11, 18-16, 11-4, 7-11, 4-2 rtd (70m)
It all happened in that match.
First game, our Youssef popped his shoulder – not on an extreme movement or anythying – at 9/7. I thought he was going to stop, as he is coming back from that same injury two months ago. But throwing caution to the wind, he kept playing, losing the first game, but taking the second on his 11th game ball, would you believe!!! Abou had one game ball, 21m game.
What. A. Rally. 👌@mabouelghar & Youssef Ibrahim are putting on a show here at the @OPTASIAsquash 🔥
📺 https://t.co/ZZPqYX01Pw pic.twitter.com/EzVqugJB4u
— PSA Squash Tour (@PSASquashTour) March 25, 2026
Having seen the physio again after the second game, Yous seemed liberated in the third, truly “on fire” out there, spring chicken and all, while Abou was probably tired both mentally and physically from the loss of the 21m game. 11/4 in 8m.
Out of the blue, Abou finds his best squash, forcing errors out of Youssef, probably a bit of drop of adrenaline. 11/7 in 11m.
But it’s Abou’s turn to get injured, a bad adductor strain at 2/2. He tried to come back on court, but chose the wise decision, and retired.
As Yous declared at the end, we hope the Golden Boy of Egyptian Squash will be able to perform in two days time…
Ibrahim : “It’s always a pleasure to share the court with him, he’s not just an amazing player, he’s also extremely fair and super talented, so it’s always fun to play with him. It’s sad to end this way of course. I think the quality was really good, but I hope he recovers very quickly. The biggest events are coming up, so I hope he can be back for those.
“I’m the same, I think, a few more testing shots then I probably would have retired myself. I’m happy I dug in. I’ve seen this situation a few times already, so I just want to get back on and see what I can do. It caught me by surprise, I’m sure it’s going to be very sore when I cool down and I just hope I can be able to compete in 2 days time.
“It’s happened a lot to me so I’m used to it. All the tactics go out the window and you try to think about protecting it as much as possible, the pressure comes off really because I know I’m on borrowed time a bit, so I just wanted to stay present and play each shot at a time. I’m glad it worked, but hopefully it gets better.
I’m not going to think about the next match but only concentrate on trying to be fit to be playing the next match…
