PSA World Championship winner Ramy Ashour is seen with Nabeel Ali bin Ali, President of Qatar Squash Federation after winning the world championship in Doha in this file picture of November 22, 2014.
World Championship runner-up Ramy Ashour of Egypt became the second top ranked player to pull out of the upcoming Qatar Classic in the last two days.
On Tuesday, former World Champion Gregory Gaultier of France was forced to withdraw from the November 13 to 18 PSA event as he was unable to recover from the ankle injury he sustained during last week’s PSA Men’s World Championship. Ashour had to take the painful decision after failing to recover from the hamstring injury he picked up during last week’s PSA Men’s World Championship final.
The maverick Egyptian has suffered a barrage of hamstring injuries over the past two years, however his body looked to be coping as he made it all the way to the final in Cairo.
But he was forced to shake hands in the fourth game of his clash with compatriot Karim Abdel Gawad, bringing a premature end to the match and preventing ‘The Artist’ from appearing in Qatar, the scene of two of his three World Championship triumphs.
The injury will also dent Ashour's hopes of being one of the eight qualifiers for the season-ending Dubai PSA World Series Finals as he will be unable to accrue vital points on the PSA Road to Dubai Standings - where he currently sits in third place - with the Qatar Classic acting as the third stage on the PSA Road to Dubai.
As a result of the injury, German No.1 Simon Rösner takes Ashour's place as the number eight seed and will meet a qualifier in the opening round, while Switzerland’s Nicolas Mueller moves into the main draw and will also face a qualifier.
On Tuesday, Gaultier’s hopes of regaining the Qatar Classic title came to a premature end. The 33-year-old Frenchman, a 2011 Qatar Classic winner and a runner-up last year in Doha, picked up the injury during his quarter-final clash with Egypt’s Tarek Momen in Cairo last week and was forced to withdraw from his semi-final fixture with World No.10 Ashour as a result. His ankle problem is the latest in an injury-hit year for the Frenchman, who has already spent two months on the sidelines after damaging ligaments on the same ankle during January’s JP Morgan Tournament of Champions.
The qualifying rounds will be held on November 11 and 12.
