'Best Squash' Sees Dessouky Axe Asal In Black Ball Shock

Egypt's Fares Dessouky caused a major shock on day two of the Black Ball Open when he sent compatriot Mostafa Asal, the world No.1, crashing out of the PSA World Tour Gold event at Black Ball Sporting Club in Cairo.

Asal's defeat means that Peru's Diego Elias, currently No.2 in the PSA Men's World Rankings, will have the opportunity to become the sport's first South American world No.1 if he can win the event.

"I'm very happy to win the match," said Dessouky, the 2020 Black Ball Open champion, after beating the top seed. "Every time I play Mostafa it's very tough but today I played my best squash.

"He's the world No.1, he's so talented, but the last couple of times we played each other he was very dodgy in terms of his movements. Today was the first time we played a clean match since Canary Wharf. Every time after the match he talks badly about me but today I'm not going to do the same.

"He deserves everyone to respect him on court because he's the world No.1, but it's unacceptable that every time he talks about players in a bad way. Hopefully that will stop very soon."

A further major shock in the men's event took place earlier when Joel Makin took out fourth-seeded Kiwi Paul Coll 11-9, 8-11, 13-11, 11-8 in 90 minutes.

The Welshman went into the match 2-12 down in their career head-to-head tally - the last time they met being in the Commonwealth Games gold medal play-off last August in England, where Coll prevailed in five games.

"I know I can beat these guys and I knew what I had to do, I had to expose that technique, pin him back in the forehand side, keep peppering it and working it and I knew I was going to get those errors," said Makin, after his first Tour win over the former world No.1 since the World Tour Finals in October 2020.

"If my body is right and I'm feeling good physically, I can beat any of these guys.

"I was wired for that today and I wanted that. The resilience was there and my squash is getting tighter, I'm working on it all the time. I'm not interested in settling for these early round exits, I want to be in the later stages.

"I knew I could do that and I'm happy to put that together."

In the women's event, defending champion Nouran Gohar completed a comfortable 3/0 victory over USA's Sabrina Sobhy. The 25-year-old world No.1 will go up against England's No.7 seed Sarah-Jane Perry for a place in the last four.