Is Gawad a slow starter?
World Number 4 Karim Abdel Gawad wears a light demeanor and heavy reputation. For all the former world champion’s silky strokeplay, his perceived failure to get going until long into the contest is, in many people’s eyes, his defining characteristic. SquashTV regularly questions when the Egyptian’s alarm clock will ring, while this trait makes The Baby-faced Assassin a uniquely meme-able player.
Is it really true that such a successful player so readily hands his opponent the initiative? In this piece, Cross Court takes a look at the numbers to ask: is Gawad’s reputation as a slow starter justified?
To evaluate whether Gawad’s reputation is warranted, we took a close look at all the matches played by the current PSA men’s Top 10 players since January 2019. For Gawad, this means a total of 80 matches. Calculating the percentage of first games won by each of these players allows a point of comparison between Gawad and his similarly ranked competitors.
For a baseline, Ali Farag has won 68% of the first games in his matches over the past two years. Mohamed El Shorbagy pips his rival for the World No.1 spot with 70%. Marwan – 64%. Tarek Momen comes in fairly low at 60%, while Paul Coll and Diego Elias have both been quick starters of late, winning 72% of Game 1s in their matches.
Gawad? The Baby-faced Assassin has won just 55% of Game 1s in his matches in the past two years, well below par for a player of his rank. Of the Top 10 male players, only Columbian Cannonball Miguel Rodriguez, ranked #9, is a slower starter than the Egyptian.
Since January 2019, Top 10 male players have won 65% of first games in their matches. Gawad clocks in an enormous 10 percentage points below average. Some reputations are unfair. Gawad’s is well and truly deserved.
Although Gawad starts slowly, he does make amends quickly: his record in the second game of matches is excellent. Since January 2019, Gawad has won 76% of the Game 2s he’s contested, second only to Fantastic Mr Farag on 79%. On average, players in the Top 10 again won 65% of the Game 2s they played, indication this time of how far Gawad is above the average performance in the second game.
Looking at large amounts of data in this way not only confirms numerically what we as viewers perceive to be the case, but it teases out novel revelations about players. It’s somewhat surprising to learn that Marwan El Shorbagy, arguably playing the best squash of his career post-lockdown, wins just 47% of the Game 2s he plays, a figure well below expectation for a player of his quality, and one which makes him the worst second game performer in the Top 10.
The best performer in Game 3 is Mohamed El Shorbagy, who over the past two years has won an impressive 80% of third games. But take The Beast to five and you’re in with a decent chance of winning – MES wins just 56% of deciding games, 11 percentage points down on the typical Top 10 player’s record in Game 5.
You’d need to finish Rodriguez off early, however: the Cannonball is more likely to win with every subsequent game, and hasn’t lost any of the seven five-gamers he’s contested in the past two years.
Percentage of games won by the Top 10 male PSA World Tour players since January 2019. Source: SquashInfo
For all Coll’s extraordinary fitness levels, his record in 5-gamers is surprisingly poor. Since January 2019, the Kiwi has won only seven of his thirteen final game deciders (54%), 9 percentage points down on the expected return for a player of his standing. And you better take advantage of The Baby-faced Assassin’s early lethargy: Gawad has won a hugely impressive 15 of the 18 five-gamers he’s contested in the past two years.
If winning Game 1 against Gawad is like taking candy from a Baby, the Egyptian earns his Assassin moniker the deeper into the contest he takes you.
Source: information on past matches was taken from the definite squash resource SquashInfo