Gritty Selby Survives Montreal Marathon

England's second seed Daryl Selby was taken the full distance by unseeded Frenchman Mathieu Castagnet before surviving a 98-minute quarter-final marathon in the Financière Banque Nationale Montreal Open, the PSA World Tour International 35 squash event in its fifth year in Montreal, Canada.

Playing on an all-glass court at the Montreal Forum, world No14 Selby came back from two games down to beat the rapidly-improving Frenchman - ranked 30 in the world - 8-11, 8-11, 11-3, 11-9, 11-4.

"Sometimes squash is just about pure grit and determination," the 30-year-old from Essex told his Twitter followers later. "Proud of myself for digging very deep to beat Mathieu from 2-0 down."

Selby, runner-up in the event in 2010, now faces surprise English opponent Adrian Waller, the unseeded world No35 who stunned fourth-seeded compatriot Chris Simpson 11-3, 11-7, 11-9.

Channel Islander Simpson is playing in his first event since celebrating a career-high world No21 ranking this month.

The other semi-final will be the match predicted by the draw - between Spanish favourite Borja Golan and India's No3 seed Saurav Ghosal.

Golan, the world No9 from Santiago de Compostela, also prevailed in a marathon battle - a four-game encounter which lasted 102 minutes, but included a 23-minute injury break.

Scotland's world No32 Alan Clyne took the opening game and forced the second to a tie-break - but the Spanish number one ultimately prevailed 9-11, 12-10, 11-5, 11-9.

Ghosal, the highest-ranked Indian of all-time who celebrated a best-ever world number 17 this month, was also taken to four games by Omar Abdel Aziz - but overcame his 30-year-old Egyptian opponent in less than an hour, winning 11-3, 11-4, 2-11, 11-4.

"Happy to win my match 3-1 today," tweeted the 27-year-old from Kolkata later. "Aziz played some good stuff but thankfully my squash was better than yesterday!"

Semi-final line-up:
[2] Daryl Selby (ENG) v Adrian Waller (ENG)
[1] Borja Golan (ESP) v [3] Saurav Ghosal (IND)