Mazen Hesham's win over higher seed Simon Rösner has been the biggest victory of the 21-year-old Egyptian so far (pic: Steve Cubbins). Egyptian qualifier Mazen Hesham (le) delighted the home crowd at the 2015 El Gouna International, with a stunning 3/1 win over World No.10 Simon Rösner (ri) during the opening day of action at the Red Sea resort. Hesham, the unpredictable World No.30 out-gunned Rösner from the start, executing an array of incredible winners to deny the powerful man from Germany to take a 12-10, 11-7, 11-13, 11-7 victory.
“I’m happy with how I played today because I was patient when I needed to be patient and I played the right pace when I needed to,” said Hesham. Hesham will now take on compatriot Mohamed Elshorbagy, the 2014 runner-up, in a mouth-watering second round encounter after the world No.1 progressed after an effortless 3/0 win over Ali Farag, the Egyptian who toppled seeded Gregoire Marche in qualification.
Afterwards Indian World No.23 Saurav Ghosal also upset the rankings as he beat Tarek Momen, the World No.7 from Egypt 12-10, 11-1, 7-11, 12-14, 11-9 in 85-minutes to set up a 2nd round encounter with Omar Mosaad. “We’re both similar players in the way we move and the amount of attacking play we instinctively like to play so it makes for an entertaining match and we tend to play well against each other,” said Ghosal.
1st round results (top half):
[1] Mohamed Elshorbagy (EGY) bt [Q] Ali Farag (EGY) 11-9, 13-11, 11-5 (44m)
[Q] Mazen Hesham (EGY) bt Simon Rösner (GER) 12-10, 11-7, 11-13, 11-7 (56m)
Max Lee (HKG) bt [Q] Nafiizwan Adnan (MAS) 7-11, 8-11, 11-5, 11-5, 11-8 (75m)
[8] Peter Barker (ENG) bt Adrian Waller (ENG) 11-5, 11-7, 11-3 (47m)
Saurav Ghosal (IND) bt [7] Tarek Momen (EGY) 12-10, 11-1, 7-11, 12-14, 11-9 (85m)
Omar Mosaad (EGY) bt [Q] Olli Tuominen (FIN) 11-5, 11-8, 13-11 (42m)
Mathieu Castagnet (FRA) bt [Q] Omar Abdel Meguid (EGY) 7-11, 6-11, 11-5, 12-10, 11-9 (88m)
[3] Nick Matthew (ENG) bt [WC] Zahed Mohamed (EGY) 11-6, 11-6, 11-6 (47m)
