Squash: El Shorbagy battles through pain barrier to beat Golan
Mohamed El Shorbagy beat Borja Golan to reach British Open quarter-finals.
KINGSTON UPON HULL (AFP) - World number one Mohamed El Shorbagy had to survive injury problems and a two-point deficit in the final game against Borja Golan before reaching the quarter-finals of the British Open.
The top-seeded Egyptian has never won the world s oldest tournament and his chances looked to be receding when he went 5-3 down in the decider against the former top ten player from Spain.
He survived by launching four backhand drop shot attacks tight to the left-hand wall to carry him from 7-7 to victory by 4-11, 11-8, 11-6, 1-11, 11-7.
El Shorbagy s problems came from several directions.
He found Golan in uninhibited mood, which brought out-of-character spells of gambler s brilliance with his stroke play as well as two code-of-conduct warnings.
One was imposed for his persistent talking and the other for hurling down his racket.
El Shorbagy also injured his right leg in a tough four-game opening round match against England sJames Willstrop, and had been unable to practise on his day off on Tuesday.
"Hopefully I can continue," said El Shorbagy.
"If I can on one leg, I will still keep pushing for sure. It s been such a difficult draw, dealing with these kind of opponents so early," he added, referring to Willstrop, a former world number one, and Golan, a former world number five.
El Shorbagy s reward is a quarter-final with Simon Rosner, the seventh seeded German who won a brilliant four-game encounter with the gifted young Egyptian, Fares Dessouki.
