Houston Open SF: Asal Moves Through To Final After ElShorbagy Injury

It’s not the way that Asal would have wanted, but ‘The Raging Bull’ has moved through to the Houston Open final after an injury sustained by Marwan ElShorbagy forced him out of the fiercely contested match, giving Asal a shot at the title and guaranteeing his rise to World No.1 on Monday.

With so much on the line for Asal, the tension was heightened between the two Egyptians from the opening exchanges in the first game. Both players started off with attritional rallies with the middle of the court seeing a lot of action and traffic. The World No.2 was ahead for most of the game with refereeing decisions deciding the majority of the points. Asal managed to close out the game 11-7, winning seven of those points on stroke decisions.

The second game followed a similar pattern with both players trying to hold their ground in the middle of the court and looking to find space to test each-others movement. The score reached 8-8 in the crucial game and it was the younger Egyptian, Asal, who played the big points better and let out a might roar after his drop shot wasn’t retrieved by ElShorbagy.

The street-wise ElShorbagy responded in the third game and started to use different angles to break up the rhythm of Asal and string points together to breathe more life in the contest. Unfortunately, however, at 10-4 game ball to ElShorbagy, there was contact between the two players in the middle of the court which sent ElShorbagy to the ground, with loud screams of pain coming from the World No.6.

ElShorbagy was helped off court and after given time to treat his injury, he was subsequently unable to return to court and the match was awarded to Mostafa Asal. That win for the top seed ensures that he will become the World No.1 in the next PSA World Rankings on Monday.

Result:

 [1] Mostafa Asal (EGY) bt [3] Marwan ElShorbagy (EGY) 3-1: 11-7, 11-8, 4-11 retired (98m)