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Egypt and Pakistan Set Up Seventh Straight World Junior Team Champs Final Clash

17 August 2016

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Top seeds Egypt and Pakistan will face off in the final of the Men’s World Junior Team Championships for the seventh successive time after seeing off England and USA, respectively, during the semi-final stage in Bielsko-Biala, Poland.

Marwan Tarek Abdelhamid of Egypt took on Englishman Harry Falconer in the day’s first semi-final, with the former coming from behind to take the opener on the tie-break.

From there, Abdelhamid dominated proceedings and took two further games to put his country in charge of the fixture.

It was a different story for World Junior Individual Championship runner-up Saadeldin Abouaish, who was forced all the way to five games against Charlie Lee. The 18-year-old pulled through though after Lee sportingly called his own double bounce on match point to send Egypt through to a 12th World Junior Team Championships final.

“That was a really good match,” said Abouaish.

“I thought I was unlucky not to close it out in the fourth having come back like that, but managed to hold my concentration in the fifth. Great respect to Charlie for calling his ball down on the last point, that’s true sportsmanship and real class.”

Pakistan, meanwhile, will join Egypt in the showpiece event after Abbas Shoukat and Israr Ahmed achieved respective wins over USA duo Samuel Scherl and Andrew Douglas.

The USA, appearing in their first ever semi-final at this tournament, started well when Scherl went a game ahead against Shoukat, but the man from Pakistan bounced back to close out the victory in four, before teammate Ahmed followed up with a straight games victory over Douglas to ensure that Pakistan became the first country to reach eight consecutive finals.

Egypt and Pakistan first met in the final of the World Junior Team Championships in 2004 and, since then, have contested a series of fiercely-fought fixtures, with Egypt currently leading the head-to-head final record 4-2 over that period.

Results – Men’s World Junior Team Championships 2016

Semi-Final

[1] EGYPT 2-1 [5] ENGLAND
Marwan Tarek Abdelhamid bt Harry Falconer 12-10, 11-6, 11-5 (34m)
Saadeldin Abouaish bt Charlie Lee 6-11, 11-4, 11-9, 11-13, 11-8 (68m)
Youssef Ibrahim Abdallah lost to Kyle Finch 5-11, 11-8, 10-12

[2] PAKISTAN 2-0 [6] USA
Abbas Shoukat bt Samuel Scherl 10-12, 11-4, 11-4, 11-5 (40m)
Israr Ahmed bt Andrew Douglas 11-9, 11-9, 11-9 (28m)

5th – 8th place play-offs:

[4] INDIA 2-0 [9] NEW ZEALAND
Ranjit Singh bt Finn Trimble 13-11, 10-12, 11-5, 11-5
Velavan Senthilkumar bt Jamie Oakley 11-4, 11-8, 5-11, 11-5

[3] FRANCE 2-1 [10] AUSTRALIA
Rohan Mandil lost to William Curtis 11-5, 3-11, 13-11, 6-11, 2-11
Benjamin Aubert bt Alex Eustace 11-9, 12-10, 11-5
Victor Crouin bt Alex Oswald 11-6, 11-2, 11-2

9th – 12th place play-offs:

[11] HONG KONG CHINA 2-0 [8] CANADA
Lai Cheuk Nam Matthew bt Rahul Sehrawat 11-6, 11-6, 12-10
Ng Ka Yiu bt Michael Mehl 11-9, 11-9, 14-12

[12] JORDAN 2-1 [17] SOUTH AFRICA
Hamza Alzubaidi lost to Callan Mackenzie Hall 11-6, 8-11, 11-13, 9-11
Mohammad Al Sarraj bt Richard-John Kuhn 11-8, 11-4, 11-4
Abedalkader Jeitan bt Sipho Ncube 11-8, 11-9, 9-11, 11-9

13th – 16th place play-offs:

[14] SWITZERLAND 2-1 [16] ISRAEL
Yannick Wilhelmi bt Nadav Mizrachi 11-5, 11-3, 10-12, 11-3
Roman Allinckx lost to Nadav Raziel 11-6, 4-11, 8-11, 4-11
Christoph Zust bt Ido Burstein 6-11, 11-3, 11-2, 11-5

[7] MALAYSIA 2-0 [19] SPAIN
Marcus Sim Wei Jie bt Jesús Ángel Gallardo 11-6, 11-4, 11-3
Eain Yow Ng bt Nilo Vidal 11-5, 11-6, 11-7

Draw

Final:

[1] EGYPT v [2] PAKISTAN

5th place play-off:

[4] INDIA v [3] FRANCE

7th place play-off:

[9] NEW ZEALAND v [10] AUSTRALIA

9th place play-off:

[11] HONG KONG CHINA v [12] JORDAN

11th place play-off:

[8] CANADA v [17] SOUTH AFRICA