Giantkillers Elias & Ghosal Through To Channel VAS Semis

Unseeded Diego Elias and qualifier Saurav Ghosal will compete in the semi-finals of the Channel VAS Championships at St George's Hill while defending champion Paul Coll and last year's runner-up Tarek Momen bowed out of the 2017 staging of the PSA M100 event in Weybridge.

Elias, the 20-year-old world No.15 from Peru, came out on top in a topsy-turvy clash with Egypt's world No.8 Tarek Momen - winning 11-8, 4-11, 11-6, 4-11, 11-3 to reach his third PSA M100 semi-final.

"I'm really happy with the win, Tarek is a great player and he's eight in the world," said Elias.

"It would mean a lot to me [to get to the final], I've been in three semi-finals at $100k tournaments and I always lose, so I want to do my best tomorrow and try to get to the final."

Elias will now face second seed Ali Farag, the world No.5 from Egypt ousted Kiwi Coll, the world No.10 who shocked the squash world last year after coming all the way through qualifying to take his biggest ever title.

But Coll struggled to break down a resilient Farag, who moved the New Zealander into the back corners at will, with Farag winning 11-9, 11-4, 11-7 in 45 minutes

Last week saw Farag lift his maiden World Series title at the US Open title but he sent out an ominous warning to the other players in Weybridge by saying that he feels that he is playing better now than he did in Philadelphia.

"I think this is the best I've played all week, even compared to the US Open," said the 25-year-old Harvard graduate.

"I was very pleased with the way I controlled the pace because if it gets out of hand against Paul then I would have no chance. I had it in my head before I got on court that I had to stay in front of him as much as possible.

"He's so good at getting to the ball so I was trying to hold as much as possible and mix the pace up. I think I did that quite well today, I even surprised myself, to be honest."

Ghosal, the world No.26 from India who removed third seed Marwan Elshorbagy in the opening round, continued his in-form run by defeating Egyptian Mohamed Abouelghar, the No.8 seed, 11-9, 5-11, 8-11, 11-3, 11-8 in 68 minutes.

"I'm happy to beat someone like Abou, especially after he gave me a real lesson in Macau three weeks ago," said the Kolkata-based 31-year-old. "To back up what I did against Marwan the other day and to beat someone of his calibre is pleasing."

Ghosal will take on Mohamed Elshorbagy, the world No.3 from Egypt eased past Colombia's former world No.4 Miguel Angel Rodriguez.

The number one seed was irrepressible throughout the match as he dominated proceedings and gave Rodriguez nothing to work with around the middle as a focused performance from the Bristol-based Egyptian saw him take it 11-2, 11-3, 11-8 in 32 minutes to move to within one win of a fourth successive PSA World Tour final.

"When you are in the zone, like I was in the first two games, it's very hard for a player to take you out of it," said Elshorbagy senior.

"I knew I was bound to lose focus at some point in the third but I was expecting that I would lose more focus than I actually did. And in the third, I was always comfortable, always a couple of points ahead.

"When you finish a match like that, you have to control your emotions because you know that you are not going to play like that every day. Last time we played was in San Francisco a few weeks ago, it was on a traditional court, it was a completely different style of squash and he nearly pushed me to five games."