Egyptian Ramy Ashour has failed to recover in time from a hamstring injury for the Qatar Classic, which starts on October 31.

By Sports Reporter
Doha

World champion Ramy Ashour has withdrawn from the upcoming 2015 Qatar Classic, a PSA World Series tournament to be played at the Khalifa Tennis and Squash Complex in Doha, Qatar — the scene of his dramatic 2014 World Championship victory 12 months ago.
The 28-year-old Egyptian was forced to concede his second round match at the recent Delaware Investments US Open against Mathieu Castagnet due to a hamstring injury and has failed to recover in time for the Qatar Classic, which starts on October 31.
As a result, England’s Adrian Waller comes into the main draw to face a qualifier in the first round, while Castagnet moves up to occupy the number eight seeding in the draw. There were injury pullouts in the women’s draw too, with world No 5 Alison Waters and world No 8 Nour El Tayeb withdrawing from the competition.
Recent Delaware Investments US Open runner-up El Tayeb pulled out after failing to recover from a shoulder injury sustained following a heavy fall during her impressive quarter-final win over world No 1 Raneem El Welily, while Waters has aggravating a lower back injury. As a result, Tesni Evans of Wales and Yathreb Adel of Egypt have moved into the main draw automatically, where they will face Nouran Gohar of Egypt and India’s Dipika Pallikal, respectively.
“It’s a big loss for the event and for the fans as Ashour is one of the most popular players here. He is also the reigning world champion and has won this event earlier too. We pray for his speedy recovery from the injury,” said Gamal Rasmi, Technical Secretary, Qatar Squash Federation.

Al-Tamimi gets wild card
Qatar’s Abdulla al-Tamimi has been given a wild card to the main draw of the Qatar Classic. The 20-year-old Tamimi rose from the junior ranks and is currently Qatar’s number one squash player, having turned professional in 2011. He moved into a career-high ranking of 67 in April this year thanks to some consistent performances.
Earlier this month, he reached his first PSA World Tour final at the $10,000 AnyPresence Open in Virginia, USA, but lost to Farhan Zaman of Pakistan in the final. He’s currently 71st in the world squash rankings.
The main draw matches will start on October 31, while the qualifying rounds will be played on October 29 and 30, from which eight winners will join the 24 players in the main draw.
It will be a tough outing for the Qatari in the main draw though as he will be playing defending champion and world number one Mohamed El Shorbagy of Egypt in his first-round match.
Syed Azlan Amjad is the other local player in the list, but the 19-year-old has to first make the quarter-finals of the qualifying round to make the main draw. Amjad, ranked a distant 461 in the world, made the third round of the World Junior Squash Championships, played in the Netherlands in July.