No.2 Seed Coll Survives Asal Revival To Reach Final

2016 Champion Paul Coll beat No.3 Mostafa Asal in four games to reach the Optasia Championships final just an hour after fiancé Nele Gilis had reached the women’s final.

The No.2 seed New Zealander had won just four of eleven encounters with Asal, but came into the match on the back of a comprehensive win in last month’s Windy City Open.

For two games it looked as though a repeat of that performance was on the cards, as Coll controlled both opening games to take the lead 11-4, 11-8, reaping benefits from his accurate dropshots on both sides which Asal struggled to reach, often resulting in strokes.

The Egyptian came out firing in the third game though, markedly upping the pace and hammering in nine winners as he romped to a 10-1 advantage with the crowd willing him on all the way. Coll saved three game balls but soon enough Asal had the game.

The fourth was an anticlimax for the crowd though, as Coll regained control with Asal hitting too many tins and conceding strokes through overaggressive shots. Coll maintained the scoreboard advantage, delightedly taking the game 11-5 after three successive tins from Asal.

“I rate Mosafa, all the stuff he’s doing,” said Coll after the match. “He’s a bit of trouble in his career already but he’s trying to turn over a new leaf. I’m playing a new brand of squash and I wanted to back up the performance I had in Chicago massively.

“It was very clear in my head what I was doing. Even though that third set ran away from me, I knew exactly why it ran away from me and it just goes to show the danger he possesses. If you leave the ball on his racket, you end going all over the court.

“I knew the power that he possesses. I’ve seen some of the comebacks he’s put on. I’m very happy that after I lost one set, I attacked him and got it back on my terms.”

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Results: Optasia Championships 2024 Semi-Finals
[2] Paul Coll (NZL) bt [3] Mostafa Asal (EGY) 3-1: 11-4, 11-8, 4-11, 11-5 (54m)