Qatar’s Abdulla al-Tamimi almost pulled off a big upset on the opening day of the Qatar Classic, before going down all guns blazing in his first-round clash yesterday.
The up-and-coming Qatari wild card was up against tournament fourth seed Nick Matthew, and the three-time world champion from England looked like coasting towards a straight games win after racing through the first two games 11-9, 11-8 to go 2-0 up, before al-Tamimi fought back.
With the crowd throwing its vocal support to the local hope, the emerging Qatari talent took the next two games 9-11, 10-12 with some stunning counter-attacks. The decider saw al-Tamimi go 9-4 up, sending the crowd into an even further state of delirium, before Matthew drew from his 18 years of experience to wrestle back the momentum to take seven of the next eight points on offer and seal a 3-2 win to end the 71-minute pulsating contest.
Al-Tamimi blamed “nervousness” for his up-down game. “It was always going to be tough playing Nick Matthew. He is a three-time world champion. I was very nervous at the start, I mishit the ball so many times in the beginning. He put me under so much pressure at the start, but gradually I found my shots.”
“In the final game, when I found myself 9/5 up, I thought I’d won already and tried to win the points too quickly. I wish I had Nick’s experience there… But I guess taking Nick to five games will give me a lot of confidence for my next tournaments, and the rest of the season and hopefully I’ll be able to get up in the rankings,” the local boy added.
Matthew too was all praise for al-Tamimi. “Physically I felt great, but he is such a clever player and anything I played short he was able to counterattack me beautifully,” the veteran Englishman said.
“In his corner, he has some of the greatest brains in squash — (four-time world champion) Geoff Hunt, the legend, and also Stewart Boswell and Jonathan Kemp who both played me a lot, so he had plenty of information on how to push me and beat me.
“I’m not sure how I won that to be honest. I think today he deserved to win. When we had that ridiculous rally where we both ran like headless chickens, and he ended up playing that incredible winner, I thought ‘ok, maybe this is not your day, maybe it’s his day, you’ve got to take it on the chin.’
“The only thing I tried to do was to held my head high and hoping that maybe at the end he would get a bit nervous. And that’s what I guess happened.”
“I’ve been coming here since 2001, and it’s really nice to come back, year after year. The Qatari welcome and hospitality is second to none, and I hope that the tournament will keep going year after year,” Matthew added.
It was business as usual in the other opening round matches, with defending champion Mohamed ElShorbagy surviving a scare against 19-year-old Peruvian Diego Elias, a two-time world junior champion, before winning in five games.
The hard-hitting Egyptian, who defeated Frenchman Gregory Gaultier in last year’s final, went ahead twice but was forced all the way to a fifth by Elias, who hit some superb winners. The World No. 1, who is looking to become the first three-time winner of the Qatar title, looked to be struggling with his movement towards the end of the fourth game, but he recovered to take the fifth, closing out an 11-4, 8-11, 11-8, 6-11, 11-5 triumph.
“I have great memories in Qatar, this is where I won my first World Series title, so it’s a very important place for me,” said ElShorbagy. “I’m just very happy to get through and live another day in this event. I think it’s just my experience that paid off at the end of the fifth, I got a good start there too.
“All credit to Diego, he played superbly. He is an amazing guy, we are very good friends on and off court. I know we’ll have many more hard battles in the future, and I know that soon he will beat us all, but for now I’m happy to try and beat him a few more times,” he added.
In the sole upset of the day, India No. 1 Saurav Ghosal went down to World No. 35 Alan Clyne. Both Clyne – who battled through qualifying to reach the main draw here – and Ghosal are two of the quickest players on the circuit, and their sublime court coverage and impressive retrieval abilities were evident as the duo played out a series of brutal rallies throughout the 47-minute encounter.
“I don’t know what happened,” was all a clearly disappointed Ghosal said after his earliest ever exit from the Qatar Classic.
His Scottish opponent said he has been working on trying to play positively. “I haven’t played him in a while, but I haven’t had a good record against him. He always seems to get me on a string, so this time I tried to be the one that was dictating rather than him. I felt like I did that and used his speed against him, so I think that’s what turned the tables a little bit,” Clyne said.

Results (Round 1)
James Willstrop (Eng) beat Chris Simpson (Eng) 3-1 (7/11, 11/2, 11/4, 11/0); Gregoire Marche (Fra) beat Mohamed Abouelghar (Egy) 3-2 (9/11, 11/6, 11/9, 3/11, 11/8); Q-Alan Clyne (Sco) beat Saurav Ghosal (Ind) 3-1 (12/10, 9/11, 11/7, 11/1); 6-Tarek Momen (Egy) beat Q-Paul Coll (Nzl) 3-2 (7/11, 11/8, 8/11, 12/10, 17/15); 4-Nick Matthew (Eng) beat WC-Abdulla al-Tamimi (Qat) 3-2 (11/9, 11/8, 9/11, 10/12, 11/9); 1-Mohamed Elshorbagy (Egy) beat Diego Elias (Per) 3-2 (11/4, 8/11, 11/8, 6/11, 11/5)
(Q: Qualifier; WC: Wild Card; Seedings in prefix)