Willstrop escapes from British Open squash brink

HULL, United Kingdom (AFP) –

James Willstrop of England (right) plays against Ramy Ashour of Egypt during their World Cup Squash final in Chennai on March 12, 2011. Willstrop, the only player to have been denied the British Open title by a single point on two separate occasions, has kept alive his dream of one day making that last shot with an extraordinary quarter-final escape.

James Willstrop, the only player to have been denied the British Open title by a single point on two separate occasions, kept alive his dream of one day making that last shot with an extraordinary quarter-final escape on Friday night.

The former world number one from England was two games and 8-9 down to Cameron Pilley, the unseeded Australian, before winning 9-11, 9-11, 14-12, 11-6, 11-2 in a one-hour 46-minute struggle which was so intense it left both men doubled up with exhaustion at the finish.

The third-seeded Willstrop survived on courage, desire, and experience – helped in the decider by Pilley’s gradually spreading cramps, which in the last few rallies prevented him from doing more than stagger a few steps.

“The intensity was just so great,” said Willstrop, his words issuing from the frontier of collapse. “There was so much of it in every point it was like a brain-ache.

“I don’t know how I turned it around. I didn’t hold up mentally between games,” he admitted.

“I needed calm people, and I had Malcolm (his father) and David (Campion, his brother) who were calm, and I just wanted to win it for them.

“I just dug in, dug in, dug in. I was unable to hit the ball straight and that was all down to Pilley, and what he did. Pilley was unbelievable.”

Despite this Pilley may well have been suffering from the effects of a similar escape the previous day, when he came from two games down against world runner-up Mohamed El Shorbagy – winning, amazingly, by an identical five-game score to the one by which he lost against Willstrop.

Willstrop may now find it difficult to recover well enough to trouble Ramy Ashour, the top-seeded world champion from Egypt, who came through without alarms by 11-7, 11-4,11-7 against Spain’s Borja Golan, and is the hot favourite.

Ashour has now gone one year unbeaten. “Every three to five minutes people remind me of that!” he said, indicating a mixture of pleasure and pain.

“As soon as I answer, I then have to put it out of my mind because it gets caught up in my head and it’s difficult to put it away.”

However Nick Matthew, the defending champion issued a warning that he will not relinquish his title without a fight, producing his best form for weeks during a high-speed 11-6, 11-2, 12-10 victory over Karim Darwish, the former world number one from Egypt.

A lengthy training break before the British Open seems to have paid dividends, for the Yorkshireman played a high pace and only in the third game did Darwish seem likely to answer it.

Matthew, the only Englishman ever to have won the British Open three times, will now play Greg Gaultier, the only Frenchman to have won the British Open, who mixed moments of brilliance with spills and falls on a slippery surface while beating Tarek Momen, another talented Egyptian, 11-8, 11-7, 15-13.

Earlier on Friday the other defending champion, Nicol David, had to save a game ball in the first game of a 13-11, 11-8, 11-1 win over Joelle King, the tall sixth-seeded New Zealander, who produced moments early on when it seemed she might be able bully the champion into difficulties.

Thereafter the record-breaking Malaysian again showed how her stroke-making range has increased, playing her way skilfully out of trouble, and ending up well on top.

David now plays Alison Waters, the fourth-seeded Englishwoman, who beat her in New York in September.

The other women’s semi-final is between Laura Massaro, the second-seeded Englishwoman, and Raneem El Weleily, the third-seeded Egyptian, who will have a repeat of their sensational World Open semi-final in Grand Cayman in which both held match points before Massaro prevailed.