Former World No.1 and tournament No.6 seed Karim Abdel Gawad showed his class in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza as he came from behind to take out No.4 seed Joel Makin and reach the semi-finals of the Egyptian Open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gawad will take on Mostafa Asal in the last four after the World No.1 dispatched Youssef Soliman, while in the women\u2019s draw Egyptians Nouran Gohar and Hania El Hammamy will renew their rivalry after dominant wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gawad had made an uneven start to the tournament, fighting past Spain\u2019s Iker Pajares in round two and then coming back from 1-2 down to defeat World No.37 Kareem El Torkey in the round of 16, but today was at his mercurial best as he stopped the Welshman in his tracks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ahead of the match, much was made of the opportunity for Makin, who would have reached World No.3 with a win today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gawad had other ideas, though, as the 34-year-old rolled back the years with a sublime performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The match appeared to be going to seedings when Makin eased through the first game 11-5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Egyptian found the perfect response, though, covering every inch of the court as he matched Makin\u2019s famed work rate throughout the 67-minute encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After levelling with an 11-8 win in game two, Gawad found yet another level, taking game three 11-3 to leave Makin reeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The World No.4 attempted to hit back in the fourth game, but couldn\u2019t find a way past Gawad, who remained in the hunt for a third title at the Pyramids by closing out 11-6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterwards, Gawad said: \u201cI\u2019m really hungry to play good squash this season and try to win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPlaying in Egypt is something different for me and I just give everything 100 per cent on court but if I lose then at least I put 100 per cent in on court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTo win it twice is something that I will never forget and I\u2019m very happy to achieve. I want to reach the end and lift another trophy in front of the Pyramids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Standing between Gawad and another shot at the title is \u2018The Raging Bull\u2019 Mostafa Asal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asal produced a controlled performance to defeat Soliman \u2013 coached by Asal\u2019s former rival at the top of the game Ali Farag \u2013 in straight games 11-8, 11-6, 11-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the women\u2019s draw, World No.1 Gohar and World No.3 El Hammamy will lock horns once again after recording 3-0 wins over Belgian sisters Nele and Tinne Gilis, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the first match of the day, Gohar, who played her 500th PSA Squash Tour match in the last round, recovered from a shaky start to overcome the No.12 seed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Egyptian, who had won her last six matches against Gilis, looked edgy early on, with Gilis punishing the surprisingly frequent mistakes from Gohar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Belgian took a narrow lead during game one, but could not hold out, with Gohar eventually edging ahead via tie-break 12-10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018The Terminator\u2019 improved in the next games and, though the World No.1 was clearly frustrated with elements of her own performance, was able to book her place in the next round with a pair of 11-7 wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
El Hammamy, meanwhile, looked confident on court as she defeated the No.6 seed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Egyptian had struggled in her previous match, coming back from the brink as she went 0-2 down to Salma Hany in round three before eventually triumphing 3-2 in an uneven performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today was a far better showing from the World No.3, with El Hammamy firing in winners well and dominating the court to power through to reach the last four 11-2, 11-7, 11-5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Results<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Women\u2019s Quarter-Final<\/strong>: [1] Nouran Gohar (EGY) bt [6] Tinne Gilis (BEL) 3-0: 12-10, 11-7, 11-7 (39m); [3] Hania El Hammamy (EGY) bt [12] Nele Gilis (BEL) 3-0: 11-2, 11-7, 11-5 (38m)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Men\u2019s Quarter-Final<\/strong>: [1] Mostafa Asal (EGY) bt [8] Youssef Soliman (EGY)\u00a03-0: 11-8, 11-6, 11-3 (61m); [6] Karim Abdel Gawad (EGY) bt [4] Joel Makin (WAL) 3-1: 5-11, 11-8, 11-3, 11-6 (67m)<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former World No.1 and tournament No.6 seed Karim Abdel Gawad showed his class in front of the Great<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3370,"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-3367","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\/Karim-Abdel-Gawad_compressed-scaled.jpg",2560,1710,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Karim-Abdel-Gawad_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Karim-Abdel-Gawad_compressed-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Karim-Abdel-Gawad_compressed-768x513.jpg",640,428,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Karim-Abdel-Gawad_compressed-1024x684.jpg",640,428,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Karim-Abdel-Gawad_compressed-1536x1026.jpg",1536,1026,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Karim-Abdel-Gawad_compressed-2048x1368.jpg",2048,1368,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Karim-Abdel-Gawad_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Karim-Abdel-Gawad_compressed-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\/Karim-Abdel-Gawad_compressed-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367","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=3367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3369,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367\/revisions\/3369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}