Borja Golan of Spain takes a shot during his quarter-final match against Gregory Gaultier of France at Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex in Doha yesterday.
BY ARMSTRONG VAS
Doha: Spaniard Borja Golan stunned top seed and defending champion Gregory Gaultier of France to register the biggest win of his career and advance to the semi-finals of the Qatar Classic PSA World Series Tour event here yesterday.
The seventh seed will take on recently crowned world champion Nick Matthew of England in the last four clash today.
In the other quarter-final clash, giant-killer Daryl Selby of England went down fighting to fifth seed Mohamed Elshorbagy of Egypt at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex Glass Court in four games.
Elshorbagy will take on compatratiot Karim Darwish in an all-Egyptian semi-final encounter today.
Yesterday the biggest upset came in the second match of the evening between the 30-year-old from Santiago De Compostela, Spain and the Epinal born Frenchman.
The Spaniard, who lost the first game bounced back to win in 79 minutes to register a 7-11, 12-10, 11-6, 15-13 win over Gaultier.
It was for the first time Golan was able to taste success against the Frenchman having lost on all the five occasions that the two had met since their first meeting in 2006.
A delighted Golan said: “You have to be tough inside the court.”
He added: “Greg is such a great player even if I play my best I would probably lose, so I have to play every point like it was the last one, and I think I played pretty well today.” Golan next faces Matthew.
The match between the two veterans Matthew and 34-year-old Amr Shabana, who had met 21 times before yesterday’s clash, was set to provide lot of fireworks, but it failed to take off.
The Englishman took the first game at 12-10 but the sixth seed Egyptian pulled out due to a knee injury with the scores tied at two-all.
“I really don’t want to keep on winning like that. I don’t want people to say that I keep winning tournaments because I get a good draw, or because I’m fresher than the other guy, cause, he got injured, etc. I want to be the one that wins 12-10 in the 5th and still wins the next day,” said Matthew.
In the first match of the day, World No.11 Selby failed to replicate the success he achieved on Tuesday in defeating a much higher ranked player.
Bristol-based Elshorbagy ensured that Selby, who defeated second seed James Willstrop in the pre-quarter-finals on Tuesday, giant killing act was restricted for just one day.
World No.6 Elshorbagy, who had won the previous two meetings between the two, won in four games 11-9, 7-11, 11-4, 11-2 in 47 minutes.
The 22-year-old from Alexandria will meet fourth seed Darwish, which will ensure at least one Egyptian features in the final tomorrow.
The 32-year-old Giza-born, winner of the title in 2008 and 2010 took just 32 minutes to ease past compatriot Karim
Abdel Gawad 11-6, 11-6,
11-7.
Gawad who shocked compatriot and eight-seed Tarek Momen on Tuesday to qualify for the last eight stage of the championship could not maintain the same momentum yesterday.
In the end, Gawad ranked 17 places below Darwish in the PSA world rankings went down fighting to the much experienced campaigner. THE PENINSULA
