Local wildcard Adam Hawal recorded one of squash’s greatest ever upsets as the World No. 252 stunned World No.3 Paul Coll to reach the third round of the Egyptian Open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hawal was one of a number of players to record shocks today in Giza, with Qatar’s Abdulla Al-Tamimi upsetting English No.7 seed and former World Champion Mohamed ElShorbagy and Egypt’s Kareem El Torkey taking out Malaysian No.12 seed Ng Eain Yow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Egyptian Open, a Diamond-level event on the PSA Squash Tour, is taking place from 12-19 September, with an incredible all-glass court being erected in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza, alongside traditional courts at Club O West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
17-year-old Hawal came into the event a rank outsider, but caused headlines yesterday with an upset win over World No.32 Curtis Malik.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He recorded arguably the greatest ever shock in PSA history, overcoming a 249-place deficit in the PSA World Rankings to down former World No.1 Coll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coll completely dominated the first game on the traditional courts at Club O West, taking the opener 11-3 as he looked to get off court quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hawal was inspired in game two, though, upping the tempo as he levelled 11-9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coll had game ball in the third, but could not convert, with Hawal digging in to come through the tie break 13-11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More game ball opportunities came and went in game four for Coll, who had two chances to level the match at 10-8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To the roars of the home crowd – and the fury of Coll, who will feel, perhaps with some justification, that he was on the wrong end of a number of marginal calls – Hawal saved both, hitting four unanswered points to record an historic win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hawal will face compatriot Fares Dessouky on the stunning glass court by the pyramids in the next round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterwards, Hawal said: “I can’t believe I beat him, he’s a very good player. He’s amazing and a tremendous player, on and off court. I talked to him this morning and I can’t believe it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“After that first game I just thought I’m going to put 100 percent effort in, I was jumping on every ball and it paid off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I was just a little kid watching this tournament at the pyramids and it’s such a privilege to play there. The ancient pyramids are in our DNA and I get to be a Pharaoh tomorrow!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coll was one of three seeds to crash out today, with all upsets taking place at O West. In a top-quality performance, World No.22 Tamimi got the better of World No.7 ElShorbagy, recording a 11-9, 11-6, 11-8 victory over the 2021 finalist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterwards, Tamimi said: “It’s a dream I had. I have pictures with him when he used to win all those Qatar Classics. I remember when we played in Qatar, he told me after the match ‘you can’t beat me, because I feel like I’m playing at home!’ So I’m really happy to play in his old home here in Egypt and beat him here. I’m dreaming. I’ve never thought I will ever get close to his level, to reach the time in my career to actually beat him in the court. I’m really happy I can call him my brother off the court. But on court, there are no friends, no brothers.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
El Torkey, meanwhile, was on form as he hit back after dropping the first game to defeat Eain Yow 8-11, 11-9, 11-8, 11-5 in 56 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the women’s event, matches went to seedings. In one of the best matches of the day, Sana Ibrahim followed up her stunning campaign last year with a hard-fought victory over France’s Melissa Alves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ibrahim’s shock run to the quarter-finals last year served as a springboard for an uptick in form and rise up the rankings, and the 22-year-old World No.17 showed more grit today as she fought back from 1-2 down to record a first win in five attempts against World No.22 Melissa Alves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I was so nervous today!” Ibrahim admitted afterwards. When I saw the draw from the beginning, it was a very tough match, because it’s not just about the physicality or squash, it’s more mentality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m in the top 20 and I want to be top 10. Why not? I feel like I’m really, really close.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Women’s RD2<\/strong>: [1] Nouran Gohar (EGY) bt Hana Moataz (EGY) 3-0: 11-1, 11-6, 11-2 (28m); [10] Nada Abbas (EGY) bt [Q] Nardine Garas (EGY) 3-0: 12-10, 11-7, 11-3 (33m); [15] Sana Ibrahim (EGY) bt M\u00e9lissa Alves (FRA) 3-2: 11-6, 5-11, 8-11, 11-5, 11-5 (61m); [6] Tinne Gilis (BEL) bt Tomato Ho (HKG) 3-1: 11-7, 11-5, 5-11, 11-9 (42m); [8] Georgina Kennedy (ENG) bt Tesni Murphy (WAL) 3-0: 11-5, 13-11, 11-3 (33m); [12] Nele Gilis (BEL) bt Lucy Beecroft (ENG) 3-1: 11-8, 10-12, 11-4, 11-4 (46m); [13] Salma Hany (EGY) bt Rachel Arnold (MAS) 3-1: 11-5, 2-11, 11-4, 17-15 (48m); [3] Hania El Hammamy (EGY) bt Aira Azman (MAS) 3-0: 11-9, 11-9, 11-5 (29m); [4] Amina Orfi (EGY) bt Zeina Mickawy (EGY) 3-0: 11-2, 11-4, 11-1 (25m); [14] Farida Mohamed (EGY) bt [Q] Lauren Baltayan (FRA) 3-1: 11-5, 7-11, 11-3, 11-5 (36m); [16] Jasmine Hutton (ENG) bt Grace Gear (ENG) 3-0: 11-3, 11-5, 11-7 (25m); [7] Sivasangari Subramaniam (MAS) bt Nour Heikal (EGY) 3-0: 13-11, 11-9, 11-5 (29m); [5] Satomi Watanabe (JPN) bt Mariam Metwally (EGY) 3-1: 8-11, 11-9, 11-8, 13-11 (52m); [11] Fayrouz Aboelkheir (EGY) bt Kenzy Ayman (EGY) 3-0: 11-6, 11-6, 11-4 (26m); [9] Amanda Sobhy (USA) bt Marina Stefanoni (USA) 3-1: 5-11, 11-7, 11-3, 11-5 (31m); [2] Nour ElSherbini (EGY) bt Georgia Adderley (SCO) 3-0: 11-7, 12-10, 11-8 (43m)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Men’s RD2<\/strong>: [1] Mostafa Asal (EGY) bt S\u00e9bastien Bonmalais (FRA) 3-0: 11-1, 11-2, 11-6 (40m); [9] Aly Abou Eleinen (EGY) bt Juan Vargas (COL) 3-0: 13-11, 11-8, 11-7 (39m); [16] Dimitri Steinmann (SUI) bt Yahya Elnawasany (EGY) 3-0: 11-6, 11-8, 11-7 (39m); [8] Youssef Soliman (EGY) bt [Q] Patrick Rooney (ENG) 3-0: 11-9, 15-13, 11-3 (49m); [6] Karim Gawad (EGY) bt Iker Pajares (ESP) 3-1: 11-5, 11-8, 6-11, 14-12 (56m); Kareem El Torkey (EGY) bt [12] Eain Yow Ng (MAS) 3-1: 8-11, 11-9, 11-8, 11-5 (56m); [14] Mohamad Zakaria (EGY) bt Timothy Brownell (USA) 3-0: 11-9, 14-12, 11-9 (56m); [4] Joel Makin (WAL) bt Greg Lobban (SCO) 3-1: 13-11, 7-11, 11-5, 11-6 (77m); [WC] Adam Hawal (EGY) bt [3] Paul Coll (NZL) 3-1: 3-11, 11-9, 13-11, 12-10 (68m); [15] Fares Dessouky (EGY) bt Bernat Jaume (ESP) 3-0: 11-4, 11-7, 11-4 (36m); [11] Victor Crouin (FRA) bt Baptiste Masotti (FRA) w\/o; [5] Marwan ElShorbagy (ENG) bt Miguel Rodriguez (COL) 3-1: 11-6, 8-11, 11-7, 11-6 (44m); Abdulla Al-Tamimi (QAT) bt [7] Mohamed ElShorbagy (ENG) 3-0: 11-9, 11-6, 11-8 (33m); Jonah Bryant (ENG) bt [13] Leonel Cardenas (MEX) 3-1: 11-5, 2-11, 13-11, 12-10 (65m); [10] Youssef Ibrahim (EGY) bt Abhay Singh (IND) 3-1: 11-4, 12-10, 5-11, 11-7 (40m); [2] Diego Elias (PER) bt Nick Wall (ENG) 3-0: 17-15, 11-9, 11-6 (44m)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Local wildcard Adam Hawal recorded one of squash’s greatest ever upsets as the World No. 252 stunned World<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3226,"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":[44,7],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-3225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-newsbeat","tag-squash"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Adam-Hawal-Egypt.jpg",1600,968,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Adam-Hawal-Egypt-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Adam-Hawal-Egypt-300x182.jpg",300,182,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Adam-Hawal-Egypt-768x465.jpg",640,388,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Adam-Hawal-Egypt-1024x620.jpg",640,388,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Adam-Hawal-Egypt-1536x929.jpg",1536,929,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Adam-Hawal-Egypt.jpg",1600,968,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Adam-Hawal-Egypt-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Adam-Hawal-Egypt-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a> Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Adam-Hawal-Egypt.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3225","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=3225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3227,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3225\/revisions\/3227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}