Asal reaches the summit
We take a closer look at the new men’s #1: Mostafa Asal. The Raging Bull, just 21 years old, assumed his place atop the rankings following his Houston Open semi-final win over Marwan ElShorbagy. And as fate would have it, his first match with the #1 ranking secured was against ElShorbagy senior, a player Asal has often acknowledged as an inspiration. The narratives were abundant. How would the young Egyptian cope with facing his idol, no longer the underdog? How would Mohamed ElShorbagy use his experience to make life at the top difficult for Asal? How much additional motivation would MES have following the controversial way Asal defeated Marwan?
Asal started his tenure at #1 slowly. ElShorbagy took 5 of the first 6 rallies with 2 Winners and an Unforced Error from Asal. None of these exchanges lasted 20 shots, and three of them were over within 7 shots.
Then Asal settled. In this next phase of Game 1, The Raging Bull extended the rallies, clocking up three 40-shot exchanges. ElShorbagy’s momentum was broken with a series of lets (light blue, above). No rally was over before the 10-shot mark. Asal had flicked a switch and looked invulnerable: on a run stretching into Game 2, he lost just one of next 14 points.
This game-plan switch adjusted the match to a game of patience. Asal settled into a channel work rhythm, and backed his ability to retrieve and reset. This tactic is reflected in where each player hit shots to from the deep backhand region (below). Remarkably, over the course of the match, Asal hit 95% of the shots he played from this graveyard region, straight (57.5% back to deep left, 36.3% to mid left, and 1.1% short straight). This is up from his usual rate of 86%, and 13 percentage points higher than his opponent in this contest: MES hit 82% of his shots from deep left, straight. Asal’s tight straight work was immaculate, offering few angles from which MES could attack.
Numbers represent % of shots hit to each region from deep left (circled)
It’s one thing being defensive from a defensive position, and another thing to play defensively when provided opportunity to attack. Asal’s restrain in Houston is shown most clearly when looking at his shot selection from mid-court forehands (below). Instead of attacking short from this productive region, Asal ‘reset’ play to the deep left on two-thirds (67%) of his shots from the mid-right. Once again, this pattern was unusually high for Asal, both in the context of Asal’s typical numbers and in comparison with his opponent. MES hit this pattern on 51% of shots, while Asal typically only does this on 45% of chances.
Ominously for the chasing pack, this defensive default was supported by a ruthless volley kill. When Asal opted to, he had the time, space and skill to fire the ball magnet-like into the front left nick. He hit almost a quarter of his Winners from just behind the forehand service box (below).
Asal made not a single Forced Error in this match, according to our definitions. One interpretation of this statistic is that Asal retrieved impeccably, making good anything he got his racket to.
Barring a fast start, MES had an off night. The Beast hit 11 Unforced Errors to Asal’s 3, and had a negative Winner:Error ratio of 7:11. But this underperformance (MES’s SquashLevels dropped the maximum 5% from this match) was coerced by Asal’s all-round masterclass in precision, patience, retrieving and finishing. This Houston Final served as a coronation for Asal, and a warning to his chasers.