England’s Nick Matthew has been one of the regular and popular names at the annual tournament and his withdrawal will surely rob the tournament of some sheen.

By Sports Reporter/Doha


After world champion Ramy Ashour, England’s Nick Matthew has been forced to withdraw from the upcoming 2015 Qatar Classic, a PSA World Series tournament, due to an abdominal injury. The 35-year-old Matthew, currently ranked second in the world, has been one of the regular and popular names at the annual tournament and his withdrawal will surely rob the tournament of some sheen.
Matthew now faces a race against the clock in order to recover fully to compete in the 2015 Men’s World Championship which gets underway in Bellevue, Washington, in less than three weeks.
His withdrawal means top-ranked Swiss player Nicolas Mueller moves into the main draw automatically where he will face England’s Adrian Waller while World No 3 Gregory Gaultier moves up to occupy the number two seeding and will face Spaniard Borja Golan when the first round gets underway this Saturday.
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.
Meanwhile, the Qatar Squash Federation announced that four players would be representing the hosts in the tournament: Abdullah al-Tamimi, Abulrahaman al-Malki, Sayed Azlan and Ahmed al-Tamimi. While world No 71 al-Tamimi has been given a wild card to the main draw where he will face world No 1 and defending Qatar Classic champion Mohamed al-Shorbagi, the other three players will have to come through the qualifiers. The QFA has already received the final list of participants, both men and women, for the qualification round from the PSA.
Besides hosts Qatar, the other Arab players who would be seen in the qualifiers are Omar Abdel Maguid (world number 27), Zahid Mohamed (world number 36), Mohamed Abouelgahr (world number 38), Ali Farag (world number 48), Mohamed Reda (world number 64), Shehab Essam (world number 89)--all from Egypt. Kuwait will be represented by Abdullah al-Mezayen (world number 158) and Amar al-Tamimi (world number 122).
There’s also a fair sprinkling of Arab women players in the qualifying round. Among them are Mariam Metwally (world number 39), Nadine Shahin (world number 53), Mayar Hany (world number 69), Hania El Hammamy (world number 77), Farah Abdel Meguid (world number 78), Menna Nasser (world number 84), Hana Essam (world number 112) and Amina Yousry (world number 141). All of them are from Egypt.
“Both Ramy Ashour and Nick Matthew are big names and have a big fan following in Qatar. But injuries are part and parcel of the game and we wish them a speedy recovery. But all the other top players of the world will be coming, so fans can expect some top notch squash action,” said Gamal Rasmi, technical secretary of QSF and chief of the media committee.
Rasmi informed QSF has already received a fleet of 30 cars from Al Jaidah which will help in the smooth transport of players and officials from the airport and team hotel to the tournament venue—the Khalifa Tennis and Squash Complex.