The 1st four matches of round 3 of the Saudi World Open came out as top seed wins. English No1 seed Nick Matthew overcame Egypt Hisham Asour in style. But “it was not easy“ as Matthew commented after the match. Next player to take his quarter-finals ticket was French veteran Thierry Lincou, who beat his close friend Alister Walker (ENG) 11-5, 11-9, 7-11, 11-9. After being two games ahead of Malaysian Azlan Iskandar Egyptian Amr Shabana had to take Iskandar’s leveling of games before the 4 times World Champions raised to a 11-5 win in the final game. The last match of today was the longest of the tournament so far as Frenchman Greg Gaultier (pic le) managed to bear all attacks of Australian 2 times World Champion David Palmer (pic ri) to win 9-11, 11-7, 11-8, 11-2 after 93 minutes of play.
