Men’s top seed Youssef Soliman staved off a resurgence from Melvil Scianimanico in an 82-minute epic, winning 11-3, 5-11, 16-14, 1-11, 11-7 to progress to the semi finals of the Hamburg Open squash championships.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scianimanico, who’s claimed some big upsets already this season by dispatching former World Champions Karim Gawad and Mohamed ElShorbagy at the Texas Open, recovered from 2-1 down to force a fifth game with the World No.12. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However Soliman, who edged a monumental third game 16-14 which was settled after 30 minutes, held his nerve in the decider to win 11-7 against the French youngster to earn his place in tomorrow’s semi finals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“You can’t even hold him [Scianimanico], you’re doing all these things to break his movement, but it’s so tough to do!” he said on court post-match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I was just trying to hang in there with him, sometimes he’d fire winners in and I couldn’t do anything about that but I’m just happy to be through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“In the fourth, I didn’t know what happened, but it was definitely a mental lapse. I wanted to show more in the fifth game and I didn’t want to go out like that, and I’m so glad I could show a better version of myself in the last game.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soliman will meet Baptiste Masotti in the semi finals tomorrow night after the Frenchman quelled a fightback of his own from Veer Chotrani, claiming a 12-10, 9-11, 14-12, 9-11, 11-6 success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second men’s semi-final will be contested between Egyptian pair Aly Abou Eleinen and Fares Dessouky after they defeated Balazs Farkas and Sam Todd, respectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No.2 seed Eleinen dominated proceedings against the Hungarian to seal a 11-9, 11-5, 11-5 victory in what was his first match of the event after being awarded a walkover yesterday due to Mazen Hesham withdrawing with injury. Dessouky, who was runner-up last year to Victor Crouin, defeated Todd 11-5, 7-11, 11-8, 11-7 to reach his third semi-final this season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the women’s draw, No.1 seed Salma Hany recovered from 1-0 down to overcome Joelle King 9-11, 11-5, 11-4, 11-7 for a semi-final berth.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Egyptian was a semi finalist in her last outing in Hamburg two years, and the World No.15 has reached the same stage again after holding firm against New Zealander King. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In what was their first meeting on the PSA Squash Tour for almost five years, it was Hany’s attacking prowess which came to the fore as she overturned the 1-0 deficit to triumph 9-11, 11-5, 11-4, 11-7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Joelle [King] has been playing amazingly since she’s come back, she’s got so much experience and I was really enjoying being on court with her again,” she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I knew she could outplay me so I knew I had to dig deep and never give up, even if she’s on top in patches, but I’m really happy with how I played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Movement obviously plays a huge part. If you’re not moving well, then you’re in a bad place, but I feel like since my injury I was getting better all the time and I’m just trying to get all the puzzle pieces back together.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hany meets Jasmine Hutton in the last four after the Englishwoman downed Malak Khafagy in straight games. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Melissa Alves and Nele Gilis will lock horns in the second women’s semi-final after they came out on top against Hollie Naughton and Marta Dominguez, respectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alves stretched her unbeaten run over Naughton to four matches by winning 12-10, 11-5, 11-6, while Gillis held off Bronze-level quarter-final debutant Marta Dominguez 3-1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
QUARTER-FINAL RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Men’s: <\/strong>[2] Aly Abou Eleinen (EGY) bt. Balazs Farkas (HUN) 3-0: 11-9, 11-5, 11-5 (35m); [3] Fares Dessouky (EGY) bt. Sam Todd (ENG) 3-1: 11-5, 7-11, 11-8, 11-7 (57m); [4] Baptiste Masotti (FRA) bt. Veer Chotrani (IND) 3-2: 12-10, 9-11, 14-12, 9-11, 11-6\u00a0(69m); [1] Youssef Soliman (EGY) bt. [6] Melvil Scianimanico (FRA) 3-2: 11-3, 5-11, 16-14, 1-11, 11-7 (82m)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women’s: <\/strong>[1] Salma Hany (EGY) bt. [8] Joelle King (NZL) 3-1: 9-11, 11-5, 11-4, 11-7 (47m); [3] Jasmine Hutton (ENG) bt. [5] Malak Khafagy (EGY) 3-0: 11-4, 12-10, 11-8 (30m); [4] Melissa Alves (FRA) bt. [7] Hollie Naughton (CAN) 3-0: 12-10, 11-5, 11-6\u00a0(34m); [2] Nele Gilis (BEL) bt. Marta Dominguez (ESP) 3-1: 11-6, 7-11, 11-3, 11-4 (51m)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Men’s top seed Youssef Soliman staved off a resurgence from Melvil Scianimanico in an 82-minute epic, winning 11-3,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-11793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-squash"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Youssef-Soliman-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Youssef-Soliman-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Youssef-Soliman-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Youssef-Soliman-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Youssef-Soliman-1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Youssef-Soliman-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Youssef-Soliman-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Youssef-Soliman-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Youssef-Soliman-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Youssef-Soliman-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11795,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11793\/revisions\/11795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}