Canadian Men’s Open Quarter Final: Top Seed Crouin Through To Semis

Event top seed Victor Crouin needed four games to defeat No.7 seed Mohamed ElSherbini in the second match of the Canadian Open quarter finals.

Egypt’s ElSherbini came out the traps firing in the opening game, shooting the ball in short after finding fantastic length in the back corners. He was constructing rallies at his own pace and troubled the newly crowned French National Champion with holds and other subtle skills. The No.7 seed took the opening game 11-8 to draw first blood in the clash.

From there, the Frenchman started to come into his own. He elongated the rallies and moved in front of ElSherbini, taking every volley possible, but often sending the Egyptian deep again to make the court even bigger and make ElSherbini cover more ground.

After taking games two and three to take the lead, Crouin turned the screw even further in game three and earned himself three game balls at 10-7 but back came ElSherbini. The World No.29 clawed it back to 9-10 but after a beautiful backhand drop, it was Crouin who was taking his place in the final four.

Crouin had this to say after his win:

“I think in the second game I noticed that he was feeling it a little bit so I thought ‘I’m not feeling too good either but maybe I’m feeling a little better than him’ so just keep going out there and if I can get some more points I can feel more confident.

“I made a lot of errors in the first game and a half. I tried to keep pushing. I knew in the fourth he would come out strong and try to force a fifth but I’m happy to get through today but a scrappy win.

“I think we are all in the same boat, I try to adapt to the conditions. Every week it’s a different court and different conditions and obviously here at altitude it’s tough on the lungs but I came here early so I could get used to the conditions and I think I’m fit enough to stay on court for over an hour and hopefully, I can be better tomorrow.”