Third seed Ramy Ashour beat fourth seed Nick Matthew in four sets 11-6 9-11 11-9 11-9 at the Bombay Gymkhana Thunderdome on Thursday to bring the capacity crowd to their feet.
Ramy got a head start racing ahead to an 8-3 lead in the first game. In a déjà vu of Nick’s semifinal against Barker it seemed like Nick would claw his way back into the set as he scored three points in quick succession to move two points behind Ramy. A few unforced errors did not help Nick either. He hit the ball out at 9-6 to give Ramy a game ball. With the final shot going into the tin Nick threw his racquet in frustration. He was handed his first warning for racquet abuse.
The second set saw Nick move ahead 8-2. Just when it looked like he would cruise through the game, a series of brilliant shots from Ramy brought the score to 9-4. Nick held on though to win the set 11-9. An agitated Nick hit the ball out of the court. Nick picked up his second warning of the match for ball abuse.
In the third, the players made a lot of unforced errors. The Englishman stayed ahead by two points before Ramy came back from 7-9 down to clinch the set 11-9.The fourth set, which was crucial for Nick, saw swinging fortunes again with the scores being tied at 7-7. At that stage, Ramy upped his game and with some brilliant shot-making moved ahead to match ball on 10-7. Nick played two brilliant shots under pressure to bring it back to 10-9. There were a few tense seconds when there were three let calls before the Egyptian finished it off in style with a rolling nick from the left back court.
“This is one of the matches where I was tested physically but the longer the match went the more confident I got. This was a real important match for me as after this match I have moved up to No.1,” a jubilant Ramy said after the match.
Ramy will need to reach at least the semifinals in Saudi if he is to retain his top spot. After his second win in Mumbai, Ramy said, “I guess Mumbai is my good luck omen.” The 22 year old Egyptian,who is currently single, was all praise for Neha Dhupia saying, “Neha has a good spirit and she would make a great player if she came on the tour. All the Indian girls are also really pretty,” he added.
Nick, who was unable to get into a rhythm during the match, said, “I’m disappointed I didn’t play my best today. I was working hard to design a better flow but Ramy was the better player today and he deserved to win. I always play to the death and I thought that I would be able to come back strong today but he never let me play my attacking game.”
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