Our thriving community of squash players at Open Squash turned out in force to see some of the best in the world compete at this month's inaugural Open Squash Classic, October 6-10 in downtown New York City. As a bronze tournament on the Professional Squash Association (PSA) world tour, we were thrilled to host several players ranked in the top 20, but the real intrigue and joy in the tournament came from seeing several younger and lower-ranked players upset the seeding in remarkable matches.
17-year-old Mohamed Zakaria from Egypt made the quarter final stage of the tournament, beating higher-seeded Frenchman Gregoire March and then losing to one-time British Open winner Miguel Rodriguez, a player more than twice his age competing in his 20th competitive season on the Professional Squash Association tour, in a 3-0 match, the last game of which went on for almost 30 minutes. Zakaria asked the referee at one point, “why would I cheat? I’m only 17,” causing much amusement.
Afterwards, an exhausted-seeming Rodriguez, who dived to the floor several times during the match to retrieve a ball, told the Open Squash crowd "it's such a pleasure to be playing players like Mohamed at this point in my career. He's going to rise up the rankings for sure, but it was fun to play him and to win today."
India’s number one Abhay Singh also reached the quarter finals after knocking out the five seed, Adrian Waller from England.
Hong Kong player Ka Yi Lee has been on the tour since her final rival, Farida Mohamed of Egypt, was 11, and ranked in the low forties as she came into the tournament. But Lee managed to upset three seeded players including the number two seed, Nada Abbas, and the number three seed, Hollie Naughton, to go into the final, moving up at least 10 places in the PSA rankings as a result. Lee's incredible touch, particularly in the front court, led onlookers to suspect that she might even upset the number one seed in the end. But Mohamed, who didn't drop a game in the entire tournament, came out to slay in the final, even bursting a ball in the warmups for the second game.
"That was part of the plan, honestly," Mohamed said, after the game. "To hit hard and not allow her any opening to get into the match."
Mohamed said she loves playing at Open Squash where she trains with Amr Khalifa, former junior world champion, who was supporting her through the final.
"It's like a family here and I love to play in front of my home crowd," she said. "It's a relief, honestly, to get the victory."
Englishman Nathan Lake and Scot Greg Lobban faced off in a squash recreation of the movie Braveheart, with the Scot faring as well as Mel Gibson's character in famous Stirling Bridge battle scene of the movie. Lobban's baby son was watching from the audience, although he fell asleep for the final game and his father's victory.
"Pretty understandable, to be honest, falling asleep like that, watching me play squash," said Greg, self-effacingly. In fact, the game was remarkable for its hard-fought spirit. Lobban went on to have another hard-fought encounter with another (adopted) Englishman, Marwan Elshorbagy, who dominated the game before going on to the final.
"It's no fun playing Greg because he always wants to win every single game," Marwan said. "Some players are just pleased to reach a certain round of a tournament but not with Greg."
In the end, Rodriguez fell to frenchman and Open Squash ambassador, Victor Crouin, who bought his "A-Game" and dominated the Colombian, 3-0, in a hard-fought semifinal. Crouin then managed to get one game off Marwan ElShorbagy in the final, but conceded that his A-Game had deserted him in the last match, and that ElShorbagy deserved the championship victory.
"Open Squash is doing great things for squash," Elshorbagy said, accepting the trophy. "I loved playing in this tournament, and I'll be back next year, for sure."