2020 Men's Gold Reports REPORTS

R1 : Tarek, a mixture of errors and excellence…

R1: [2] Tarek Momen (Egy) 3-1 Todd Harrity (Usa)  9-11, 11-5, 11-5, 11-2 (36m)

Stats time. The ones that Tarek told me he doesn’t want to see.

First game (11m)
Tarek: 6 errors in 9 points. 9 winners. 7 points given away (1 stroke).
Toddy: O error. 3 winners. 0 points given away.
Second game (7m)
Tarek: 5 errors. 8 winners.
Toddy: 3 errors. 0 winners
Third game (7m)
Tarek: 5 errors. 10 winners.
Toddy: 0 errors. 0 winners.
Fourth game (7m)
Tarek: 0 errors. 9 winners.
Toddy: 2 errors.2 winners.

There, you have the match, pure and simple…

Todd

Tarek is an unbelievable mover, an unbelievable player. And I think the court suited him, better as well.

After the first game, I did what I could but I couldn’t find a way to put pressure on him, he is so accurate, and his short shots are the best in the world.

So it was pretty difficult for me today!

Tarek

I’m quite happy with that performance.

It’s always tough to play a first match after a while. With Todd it’s extra difficult because we have been training together for the last three or fourth months now. He’s spent most of his time in Cairo, he was training with my coach and we used to do a lot of drills and play practice matches together, so it was difficult to play a real match.

I think overall I’m quite happy with the performance. There were far too many errors at the beginning, which is something I really didn’t want to do. I’ve been starting slow this season in most of my matches and I wanted to cut that out, so I was hoping to get in a few long rallies at the beginning of the match and I tried to do that for the first four or five points. Then, I just did what I know best and started to attack the front and it didn’t work. I made a few errors in the first that proved crucial, I came from 10-5 down but couldn’t convert at 9-10 but from then on, I upped my level, maybe a few errors in the second but in the third and fourth – it was pretty good. My length and movement was good, so I’m happy with the match overall.

Mazen is one of the few players who I tried to change the way I play against them. I try to be more conservative than I am against more players. He goes for so many shots and when he’s on he just hits nick after nick and it’s so hard to retrieve those shots. I’ll be on my toes and prepare myself to the best of my abilities and hopefully it will be an exciting match for everyone.