Golan battles past Mosaad in Qatar

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Updated: November 2, 2020
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Spain’s former World No.5 Borja Golan battled past Egypt’s World No.16 Omar Mosaad to reach the third round of the Qatar Classic with an 11-7, 6-11, 11-6, 13-11 victory in 68 minutes.

The two experienced players are no strangers to each other having played each other nine times previously on the PSA Tour with Mosaad winning the last three. However, it was World No.26 Golan who took the victory today after holding off a fightback to reach the last 16 of a Platinum event for the first time since the 2018 Qatar Classic.

It was a scrappy encounter with plenty of video referee decisions, but Golan was able to make the difference as he held on in the fourth after seeing his first match ball saved to convert 13-11 on the tie-break and move into the last 16 in Doha.

Golan will face the winner of Simon Rösner v Fares Dessouky for a place in the quarter finals.

“It was really tough,” said the Spaniard afterwards.

“We are coming here to play the best players in the world and Omar is such a good player, a dangerous player and on this kind of court where it is so cold there are a lot of accurate shots and he hit the ball so hard. It’s so difficult to read his game and to play against him but I was focused, and I got to practice on this court so maybe that was a little bit of an advantage. It’s my first match on the glass and I felt pretty confident today and I’m happy.

“My target nowadays is to enjoy it as much as I can. In these difficult times we weren’t able to play squash for seven-eight months, so we are thankful to Qatar Squash and the PSA, we are very fortunate to be here and enjoy squash again. Hopefully with more tournaments coming up we are able to keep playing and keep enjoying the sport.”

Result:

Borja Golan (ESP) bt Omar Mosaad (EGY) 3-1: 11-7, 6-11, 11-6, 13-11 (68m)