13 Dec 2017
Manchester, 12 December 2017. Aspire Academy graduate and Qatar No 1 squash player Abdulla Al Tamimi bowed out of Manchester, AJ Bell World Squash Championships after round of 16 loss to Englishmen, Nick Matthew on Tuesday night in a match played at the National Squash Centre in Manchester. Matthew is a three-time World Champion and currently ranked 5th in the world but Al Tamimi stretched him and acquitted himself very well against Matthew.
Having made history by becoming the first Qatari player to reach the last sixteen round of the World Championships on Monday, world number 37 Qatari fought bravely and gave the home player a run for his victory. The 22-year-old Aspire Academy product on the way to the round of 16 beat seasoned players like Mathieu Castagnet of France ranked 27th in the world and in three games after he shocked world number 10 seed Simon Rosner of Germany on Sunday in the first round.
to make it to the second round, began from where he left. He won the first two games but Rosner bounced back to take the third. to one in 57 minutes to reach the pre-quarter-finals. “I couldn’t be happier,” Leading 11-4, 11-8, 8-6, play was halted when Matthew went for a heavy retrieval lunge mid court which subsequently saw a wooden panel come loose.
The rising Qatari star, who said at the start of the championship that he is determined to do well in the championship certainly did so as he not only reached round of 16 but every one of his wins were against players ranked above him in the world.
The Englishman, is playing his last Worlds having already announced his retirement at the start of the season, and he and Tamimi had to endure a bizarre moment when play was forced to stop after a lunge from Matthew created a hole in the wooden floor that needed a carpenter to fix before play could resume.