Ashour Marches On In Athens

Egypt's 17-year-old world junior champion Ramy Ashour continued to show his potential on the senior world stage by marching through to the semi-finals of the Fischer Athens Open in the Greek capital.

On the first day of his debut on the PSA Tour, Ashour upset third-seeded Dane Mikkel Korsbjerg in straight games to book a place in the quarter-finals. He then claimed his second seed scalp in the event when he despatched Germany's 8th seed Stefan Leifels 11-6 11-4 11-3 in just 26 minutes.

His opponent in the semi-finals will be France's Julien Balbo, the sixth seed who also pulled off a significant upset by defeating Sweden's No2 seed Christian Drakenberg 11-8 11-9 11-8.

Quarter-finals:
[1] Ritwik Bhattacharya (IND) bt David Barnett (ENG) 11-8, 11-4, 11-8 (32m)
[4] Andrew Whipp (ENG) bt [7] Tony James (AUS) 11-2, 6-11, 11-6, 11-6 (42m)
Ramy Ashour (EGY) bt [8] Stefan Leifels (GER) 11-6, 11-4, 11-3 (26m)
[6] Julien Balbo (FRA) bt [2] Christian Drakenberg (SWE) 11-8, 11-9, 11-8 (46m)