Final, Fram Reports : Diego for Posterity….

[3] Diego Elias (Per) 3-0 [4] Mostafa Asal (Egy)   11-6, 11-5, 12-10 (61m)

Diego Elias became the first ever Squash World Champion from South America as he beat Mostafa Asal in straight games.

 

Today, the music reached another level of madness at the venue. I managed to get the Music Man to direct the speaker not directly toward me, and that helped. But again, after a few hours of that noise – at that level, it’s not music anymore, just deafening noise, you feel ready to bite anybody that speaks to you… not to mention the whistle of that persistent Mostafa supporter who was whistling after every single rally, destroying my hearing for the next two weeks.

I had a vision of where I would like to place that forking whistle, I tell you.

If yesterday, Mostafa started his match like a complete lunatic at a ridiculous pace, tonight, he was more composed. He took the lead mid game, 5/2, only to lose the next 7 points, 9/5 to Diego, who close the game 11/6 in 23m of very hard work.

Like yesterday, Diego’s counterdropping was the key to the match I felt. He put Mostafa under so much pressure, and we started the result of that enormous amount of work produced from the second game on. Mostafa was unable to get a rally more than 4, 5 shots, making errors nearly every other point. 11/5 for Diego in against 15m of gruelling squash.

A bit the same story in the 4th, so many errors. But hat to Mostafa, who kept pushing despite stringing error after error. He didn’t want to disappoint his family, his coach, his fans. God bless him, Mash’Allah, you could see in his eyes that he so wanted to do good, but just couldn’t.

But he made his camp believe, from 3/3, 6/3, only to be caught up, error, error, 6/6, 7/7, 8/8, 9/9. He even got a game ball, 10/9. Diego, diving twice in that rally alone, managed to save it, 10/10. A winner, championship ball, 11/10. And how fitting, another tin, it’s 12/10, 18m last game.

Diego’s dad is in tears. I myself had something in my eye. What a journey. What an incredible journey for those two, “Dad/Coach and Son, against the world…”

 

Diego’s dad

Diego has been working his entire life for moments like those. When he won the World Junior title, when he became the World number one, and now World Champion today here. It’s over 20 years of hard work, the both of us, against the rest of the world, coming from Peru, so today, it feels AMAZING.

James Willstrop, coach to Mostafa

Mostafa was running very, very low tonight. You could see his eyes, his body. People forget he is 23, he hasn’t got a body of the older guys.

First world final? I told him, ‘just hang in and stay in’, and he did at the end. No, I don’t think it was about the pressure. I could just tell after the first game, ‘oh he is gone’. And Diego played brilliantly to make him get there. He was 5/2 up and then Diego stayed with him and this is what they have to do: they have to back it up, that’s life. And Mostafa hasn’t backed up. And Diego has…

Mostafa

All credit to Diego, he played super squash this week, he beat Ibrahim, Gawad, Ali, and the way he did it.

I am very proud of myself that I actually showed up today! It was really hard, I finally got to bed around 7.30am. Everybody was asleep at home, it was so weird. Today was a bit of madness. Last night match against Paul was so tough, I was so lucky to get through that one 3/2, but the recovery time was just too short, to come back and fight here.

But it’s the World Champs; I wanted so much to show the best Champs final; I didn’t want to disappoint people. In the middle of the match, I told Jimbo that I was cramping, and he told me if you are, just stop. But it was such a big game, this is the biggest match of the year, I just wanted to do the best I could.

Diego

“I just can’t believe it. It’s been a dream week since the start and I’m super happy having my whole team here and all the people who are supporting me back home. All the people who have been helping me with my squash and Jonathon Power was here at the start of the week. Also having Greg Gaultier has been a massive help for me the last few years – all of them made a big difference in my game and I can’t thank them enough. I also want to thank all my sponsors that support me all these years. I just can’t believe it.

“It’s going to huge, it’s going to be massive in Peru for all the people supporting me all these years. To be honest I don’t know how I feel right now, I haven’t processed it yet and I’m just very happy.”

 

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