Top Seeds Asal & ElShorbagy On Course For Houston Blast-Off

With straight games quarter-final victories under their belts, top seeds Mostafa Asal and Mohamed ElShorbagy are on course for a mighty final showdown at the Houston Open, the PSA World Tour Gold event at the Houston Squash Club in Texas.

Asal, the Egyptian chasing a first world No.1 ranking, was first to book his place in the semi-finals after beating France's Victor Crouin for the fourth successive tournament. The No.1 seed came out to a blistering start to dominate the Frenchman, with Crouin not able to get in front of Asal at any point. The world No.2 hit with great pace to pin the French No.1 in the back corners and pick off loose balls that came his way. The No.5 seed was becoming more frustrated during the match, allowing Asal to move forward and take advantage to win 3/0.

"It was a difficult match," said Asal after his win.

"Especially at the end, I think the referee did a great job today. It was an intense match so I want to thank him. Also, everyone is focusing on me this week and every player knows how big this week is for me. So everyone will fight for themselves and it's an interesting week for me and I'm happy to be through and all the focus on tomorrow."

Asal will become world No.1 if he can defeat his semi-final opponent, No.3 seed Marwan ElShorbagy. The younger ElShorbagy brother overcame France's Gregoire Marche in 40 minutes to progress. The movement of Marche is well known to be an outstanding trait of his and it was being tested to the maximum against ElShorbagy, who constantly worked the ball to twist and turn the Frenchman.

ElShorbagy's consistency has been paramount to his success this season and the sharp concentration from the world No.6 enabled him to close out the match and take his place in the semi-finals.

Second seed Mohamed ElShorbagy, the world No.4, closed out day three in Houston with a tough 3/0 victory over Egypt's Youssef Soliman. The rallies were intense throughout the whole match with both players pushing the pace to gain control. Soliman squandered a game ball in the second game which ElShorbagy took full advantage of to take a crucial 2/0 lead.

The younger player battled back however and played impressive squash to lead 8-4 in the third game, looking sure to be forcing the match into a fourth game. The stubborn ElShorbagy had other ideas however and started to mount his comeback. Once 'The Beast' got on a roll, he was never going to be stopped. The No.2 seed was able to physically back up tough rally after tough rally and stole the game away from Soliman to win 14-12 and move into the semi-finals.

"I'm very happy, Youssef is a high-quality player I had to produce my best squash to win," said ElShorbagy later.

"He didn't have a very good start in the first game, I was 6-1 up and I relaxed and he came back to show what a quality player he is. It was tough all the way through, the second game could have gone either way, the third game could have gone either way, just a bit of experience here and there, I played the big points better and I'm glad to win.

"When I was down in the third game I just thought to not let him win it easy. The mentality there is to think about the fourth game and think about if I'm going to lose this game, I need to make it as tough as possible to invest in the fourth game but obviously it was a big bonus to win in three."

Mohamed will be up against another Egyptian in the semi-finals as No.4 seed Mazen Hesham scored a victory over surprise quarter finalist Leonel Cardenas from Mexico. Cardenas had scored impressive victories to reach the last eight but came up short against an on-point Hesham who never allowed his opponent to settle and only needed 28 minutes to advance.