[9] Marwan ElShorbagy (Egy) 3-2 [1] Mohamed ElShorbagy (Egy) 11-6, 2-11, 11-6, 3-11, 11-8 (59m)
Marwan reverses the result of their 2017 final to oust top seed Mohamed
A thought for Basma, the mum…
After the match, an Egyptian came up to me and said with a smile “you were cheering for Marwan weren’t you”. And I replied, “no I was crying for both, because I knew how painful it was for both of them”.
Like Mohamed stated yesterday, “we hate playing against each other, because we both dream of the world title, and one of us is about to crash the other’s dream”…
I’m going to tell you what happened out there tonight. You might think you know f.a. about squash Fram. And you’ll probably be right….
Cut to 2 years ago. When Marwan reached the final of the worlds against his brother in Manchester, Mohamed just passed a terrible time on the tour, and despite having won everything at least twice, he had never won the worlds. And being the younger brother, in Egyptian terms, he considers Mohamed as his dad. And he couldn’t, even if he had wanted it, he just couldn’t break his brother’s heart/dream.
Cut to today. It’s Marwan’s turn to have gone through an horrendous time from the British Open to January. And Mohamed cannot not feel for his little brother that he has got to protect under the Egyptian uses.
Add to that that now, Mohamed has a title on his mantle piece. So today, it was OK for Marwan to walk away with the win, and acceptable for Mohamed to somehow accept it….
Not saying that Mohamed let him win but come on, 2 games were played in 5m each, 11/2, 11/3…. If that’s not a mental game, what is????
End of the psychological mumbo-jumbo, back to stats…
First game, all about Marwan, 14m with Junior at the front, no pressure. High quality squash, but a few nervous errors from Mohamed, 4, only 2 for Marwan, from 3/3 it’s 11/6 for Junior, 6 winners Marwan, 3 Mohamed.
The second is 5m, 4/0, 8/1, 11/2, thank you for coming. Mohamed being Mohamed…
Third, back to a match, 12m, from 3/3, 4/4, and again a domination from Marwan, just reading his brother’s shots and being on them before he played them. 7/4, 9/5, 11/6 again… 5 winners from Mohamed, 6 from Mohamed…
The fourth is the mirror of the 2nd, 5m, 11/3, thanks for coming again.
Superb start for Junior in the last one, 4/1, 6/2, 8/3. A good push from Mohamed, trying to motivate himself, back to 6/8, but it’s match ball for Junior 11/7. A tin, 8/10. A superb lovely winner from Mohamed, 8/10. And in three shots rally, a winner out of nowhere from Junior racquet, irretrievable. Sor’ed.
What a finish from @maelshorbagy!! 🙇
Huge battle between the ElShorbagy brothers on court right now!#PSAWorldChamps pic.twitter.com/OY9BoAIQH7
— PSA World Championships (@PSAWorldChamps) November 13, 2019
World No.10 @maelshorbagy defeated older brother @MoElshorbagy to reach the semi finals of the @PSAWorldChamps 💪
Watch out for when the lights got turned out 👀
Hear what he had to say here! 👇 pic.twitter.com/uDm3DgNecy
— PSA World Championships (@PSAWorldChamps) November 13, 2019
Marwan:
Any win against my brother is amazing. He is truly one of the greatest players of our sport, and it was tough. He is so clever, and the most experienced players in the draw.It was tough out there.
It was five games in less than an hour but I know it was really tough mentally for me. Mohamed is one of the and one of the best players ever to play the sport.He has played against so many different generations so I knew it was going to be really tough mentally, much more than physically.
At the end it was all mental, and I gave it everything I had. I put my heart into that fifth game and I am just really happy to get that result.What he did in the second and fourth, well, there was nothing I could do. Absolutely nothing. And that’s something I need to learn.
I have so much experience in my corner here, in Haitham and Nick and the way they speak to me between games, it motivates me and it pushes me. I have so much experience here, so I am really lucky to have both of them here.
I have played my brother a couple of times already this season, in China and in San Francisco and I was getting close. Today I just made sure I did not make the same mistakes as I did in China and San Francisco. I actually did some, but less, and I am really happy with how I responded in both the third and the fifth games.
I am happy with how I played overall and I am focussed for tomorrow now.Now I’ve got to forget about this match, do my recover, and hopefully, I have two more matches to play
