Farag puts on masterclass to beat Marwan ElShorbagy

England’s Marwan ElShorbagy was in a small group of players who held a positive head-to-head record against World No.1 Ali Farag as he lead 8-7 coming into today’s semi-final clash in Singapore.

The Englishman scored a win over brother Mohamed ElShorbagy in the quarter finals yesterday and started in great form as he took on the World Champion for a place in the final up for grabs. ElShorbagy was positive in his attacks and showed no signs of fatigue as he moved ahead to 4-1 on the scoreboard. It wasn’t long before Farag found his groove however and started to weave his webs to claw points back rapidly. Marwan only took two more points from here as he lost the first 11-6.

Farag raced out to a 4-0 lead in game two with ElShorbagy becoming increasingly frustrated with some decisions from the referee, thinking that Farag should be punished for opting to not play the ball when he could. This only fuelled Farag as he remained clam and composed to keep moving ElShorbagy around the court and a fast pace. It wasn’t long before the top seed was doubling his lead, winning 11-5.

The end came quickly for the No.6 seed as Farag was not looking unstoppable on the all-glass court at the OCBC Arena, moving the ball stylishly and purposefully into the four corners and not giving the dangerous ElShorbagy any opportunities to dominate. 11-2 was the score in the final game as Farag booked his place in the final.

Here’s what he had to say about his win:

“Karim Darwish [Farag’s coach and former World No.1] is the master behind thee tactics, we had the tactics overnight. He sent me a voice note with some things to do and not to do. The first point, I did exactly what I wanted to do then went 4-1 down which was not ideal but I’m happy with the way I came back to win 3-0.

“I excecuted my plan better than perfectly. I think one only beat Marwan in three once or maybe twice. You can see in the head-to-head that he is someone I regard very highly. I had to take away his length hitting and to do that for the majority the points is something that I’m very happy with.

“So far, so good for me this week. I’ve been playing some of my best squash here this week. Thanks to all the sponsors and fans for allowing me to do this and hopefully there will be two quality finals tomorrow.

Result:
[1] Ali Farag (EGY) bt [6] Marwan ElShorbagy (ENG) 3-0: 11-6, 11-5, 11-2 (34m)