Spiderman Snares Superman

The third and final piece in our series of memorable British Open matches is a look back at last year’s men’s semi-final between Ali Farag and Paul Coll. Neither player had made it to this stage of the competition before, but a nerveless 63-shot opening rally set the stage for a classic encounter. After a strong start from Coll, the Egyptian Spider began to weave his web, leveling at 1-1 before taking game 3 with some scintillating play. A generous yes-let decision handed Coll a lifeline at match ball Farag in the fourth, and the Kiwi took full advantage to level up at 2-2. The match deserved a deciding game, and it was Farag who ultimately prevailed to set up an all-Egyptian final with Mohamed ElShorbagy. ‘Superman’ Coll pushed Farag all the way, but we take a look at three areas which swung the fifth game, and ultimately the match, in Farag’s favour.

Farag brings Coll forward

The longer a squash match goes on, the softer the ball becomes. This softening means the ball bounces less and stays further in the corners, rewarding accurate hitting and retrieval abilities. And while both players produced squash of the highest quality at points throughout the match, it was Farag who made use of these conditions masterfully. This was reflected most clearly in each player’s intercept points over the course of the encounter.

While both players’ hitting from mid-court remained similar throughout the match–each hit one in four shots from this region with little fluctuation–the pattern of shots from advanced and deep regions is much more instructive. Coll’s advanced intercepts–indicative of a player being brought forward by their opponent–merit particular attention. Farag sent Coll to the front of the court on 15.4% of shots in game 1; this rose to once every five shots in games 2 and 3, and once every three shots in game 4. By game 5, Farag was sending Coll to the front of the court on a staggering 39.7% of shots. Coll also brought Farag forward more and more as the match developed–a drop shot is often countered with a drop shot–but Farag was never made to play more than one in five shots from this region. 

Unsurprisingly, as the number of shots from the front increased, the number of times each player hit from deep decreased. At the start of the encounter, Farag was hitting two-thirds of shots from this region; by the end, this figure had dropped to just one in two. Coll hit fewer shots from deep than Farag in every game, but the pattern repeated itself here: in game 1, Coll hit 54.2% of shots from deep, while by game 5 this had dropped to a remarkably low 30.5%. These final game figures are not representative of just a ball softening. Spiderman had spotted a weakness in Superman’s game, and was using a dying ball to exploit it, sending him forward time and time again. But Farag’s drop shots on their own were only so effective–kryptonite would require the addition of another tactic: volleying the follow-up.  

Farag flicks the volley switch

In games 1-4, Farag volleyed an average of 18.1% of shots, hitting just 126 volleys from a total of 695 shots. In the same period, Coll hit 198 volleys from a total of 693 shots, over 10 percentage points higher at 28.6%. Game 5, however, tells a very different story. In the final game, Farag increased his volley rate in a flash from one in five to one in three, while Coll’s dropped to one every four shots. 

It was the only game in the match where Farag (46) hit more volleys than Coll (36). Not only was Farag sending Coll to the front of court in game 5, but he made sure, whenever possible, to volley Coll’s retrieval, giving the Kiwi less time between shots to return to the T. Tellingly, in those fifth game rallies that Farag won, he volleyed 37.5% of shots; in those rallies won by Coll, this figure was over six percentage points lower at 31.2%. But win or lose, the game plan had changed radically from game 1, which saw Farag volley only 14.3% of shots. The plan worked. Farag took the final game 11-7, and it was a prime example of tactics–send Coll short, volley the return–combining to form a winning strategy, preventing Coll from controlling the T. 

Farag bides his time from deep

A major difference between the players in this encounter was their respective use of the back wall. Farag consistently hit between 30% and 40% of groundstrokes after the ball had hit the back wall (lowest 31.9% in game 4, highest 38.0% in game 5), while Coll preferred to hit his shots from deep before the ball rebounded. Over five games, the Kiwi hit just 16.3% of groundstrokes off the back wall–a figure itself inflated by the game 2 outlier. 

Once again, the starkest contrast came in game 5. By this point, Farag was hitting four out of ten groundstrokes after the ball rebounded, while Coll was hitting just one in ten. In those final game points won by Farag, he was hitting a remarkable 46.0% of groundstrokes off the back wall; on those points won by Coll, Farag only hit 18.2% on the rebound. 

So while Farag increased the pace of the final game by volleying when Coll was off the T, these figures also show that he was most deadly when slowing the tempo from deep–when Coll would have had time to recover between strokes regardless of when Farag played the ball. It was these changes of tempo, the sudden transitions from adagio to allegro, which allowed Farag to call the tune in the final game. 

As Coll clipped the tin on match ball, a shattered Ali Farag lay stretched out on the court. The strategy was a tiring one, and required all of the Egyptian’s height to volley Coll’s lobs. ElShorbagy would have been watching with delight at the energy Coll had taken out of Farag, and indeed it was the Beast from Alexandria who would overcome the world number one in the final, just 24 hours later. Coll had taken just one game from the previous four encounters with Farag that season. This time, Superman had pushed Spiderman all the way, but the resourceful Egyptian still had all the answers.