31 May 2012

AMR SHABANA vs. RAMY ASHOUR - THREE CORNER SQUASH ULTIMATE EGYPTIAN VERSION

I promised you some interesting footage from the 2012 British Open at O2 Arena. First of all, many thanks to the PSA for having permitted to record at these matches. Having such a nice close-up view allows you to catch a lots of technical details, but you can also still follow, enjoy and understand the whole structure of the rallies. But let's start with some fun stuff and not much analysis. 
The Ramy Ashour vs. Amr Shabana quarter final match had a few crazy swivel points; first game to Ramy; in the second Shabana was up 10:6, but it went again to Ramy 12:10. In the third Ramy was up 3:1, but ended up losing it 5:11. The fourth was all about Shabana: 11:1. The fifth went toe to toe until 4:4, from then on it was all Ramy again, and Shabana even ended up breaking his racket and playing the ultimate point with  it!
This rally probably is a good synthesis of the whole match, it's as crazy if not crazier as the match itself was. It's from that span when Shabana won 22 points against only 3 from Ramy; hence Ramy was a bit demoralized at this stage and in order to invent something to come out of that whole, he chose the playful way instead of the steady one.
By the way, did you count how many times Ramy touched (bumped into) the glass wall with his non-playing arm/hand? Six times. I quiet much like when players use all four corners of the court, but in this one the deep right corner was totally omitted. Let's call hence this rally 'three corner squash' from the 'Egyptian squash at its funniest' series. Mr.Ashour, Mr.Shabana, you are legends and we are grateful that you exist.