[7] Mohamed Elshorbagy (ENG) 3-1 [9] Marwan Elshorbagy (ENG) 8-11, 11-5, 11-7, 11-9 (54m)
Next opponent: Eain Yow Ng / Paul Coll
2017 World Champion Mohamed ElShorbagy got the better of younger brother Marwan at the Palm Hills Club to earn his place in the quarter-finals.
It was the 23rd time the brothers were meeting on the PSA Tour and Mohamed extended his lead on their head-to-head record to 17-6 courtesy of an 8-11, 11-5, 11-7, 11-9 victory.
If the second rally is anything to go by, we could be in for something special here 👀
A brutal rally between @MoElshorbagy & @maelshorbagy!#PSAWorldChamps pic.twitter.com/aXtuxlqH3m
— PSA World Tour (@PSAWorldTour) May 14, 2024
The pair made history in 2017 as they became the first brothers to contest the final of the PSA World Championships and they were both competing in the land of their birth having switched allegiance from Egypt to England in recent years.
It was Marwan who settled on court first as he stormed into a 7-2 lead in the opening game. Marwan, who at 30 years old is three years younger than Mohamed, was controlling the court and varying his length nicely. He held off a late charge from Mohamed to go a game ahead.
His accuracy dropped off though soon after as errors began to creep into his game, with an increase in accuracy and intensity from Mohamed squeezing tins and looser shots out of his brother.
The next two games saw Mohamed first eliminate Marwan’s lead and then establish a lead of his home. There was early hope for Marwan in the fourth as he took four of the first six points on offer, but Mohamed battled back to lead 8-5.
The match had been free-flowing to this point, but tensions escalated a little as the match entered the latter stages, with Marwan receiving a conduct warning for complaints made to the referee after he was left unhappy with a follow through on one of Mohamed’s shots.
Mohamed remained composed and closed out the win to set up a last eight match against second seed Paul Coll.
Mohamed after the match :
Mohamed : “I think in Hong Kong when we played each other we were tougher on each other,” said Mohamed.
“
We were more aggressive, but today we were both a bit softer. It doesn’t surprise me because we’ve spent a lot of time together over the last few months. We had the World Teams together, we’ve stayed together in the last three events and then we had the European Teams which was a massive win for the both of us to do it as brothers together.
“It creates a bit of a softer side because at the end of the day we’re brothers. We could have been more aggressive today but this is the journey we have to through. We’ve had a lot of matches in the past which have gone in very different ways and the attitude has been different every time we played.
“If you asked me two months ago if I wanted to play again, I would have told you that I wanted to stop, I wanted to retire. After I beat Iker [Pajares] in El Gouna, I called Jonah that night, I needed someone who has known me since I was a kid. He really got me pumped up and I think everyone saw what I did against Youssef Soliman the day after.
“I went over the line there, but I wanted to be aggressive again and I used to be aggressive on court. At the European Teams I played Victor, I was aggressive but I wasn’t over the line and that’s ‘The Beast’ that I want to see of myself. In the past two or three years I’ve been more of an ambassador than ‘The Beast’ and I want to be the person who never cares about what people say on social media and who just wants to win.”
