By LEE HORTON
Peter Barker’s World Championship dreams were cruelly wrecked when injury forced him to retire from his second-round clash with Finland’s Henrik Mustonen.
The Essex based world No.7 was looking strong and confident and he led 11-2, 11-4. But after what appeared to be a slip, Barker’s tournament was over, the unfortunate victim of a damaged calf.
He struggled through the third game conceding it 11-6 but called it a day after taking a three-minute injury break and following conversation with physio Jade Leeder.
It was a tough break for the seventh seed who went into the second round confident of making the quarter finals where he would have faced Saurav Ghosal of India.
Ghosal says he will play “for all of India” when he takes on Mustonen for a place in the World Championship quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Ghosal played a patient, tempo-building match to oust Botswana’s Alister Walker 11-7, 11-5, 7-11, 11-7. The Indian no.1 then expressed utter surprise at his next opponent after Barker was forced to concede his match.
Barker’s England compatriots |Nick Matthew and James Willstrop secured their expected places in round three. Matthew removed Hong Kong’s Max Lee in three and Willstrop did the same against Tom Richards of England.
Afterwards, Matthew said: “Early rounds are not always easy, sometimes you feel that you’re not fully there and that was one of those today. It felt earlier than one o’clock for some reason today, felt more like an eleven o’clock it was a bit strange, maybe because yesterday there were eight matches on, it felt like there was more going on but you know you’re not always going to play well six days in a row but sometimes you just need to get the job done. If I want to win I’ll have to play a bit better especially when the calibre gets a bit better but that’s the way you want it really.”
Top seed Ramy Ashour raced into the last 16 beating fellow Egyptian Fares Dessouki 11-6 11-6 11-4 in only 23 minutes to claim his 51st consecutive win.
Egypt’s Amr Shabana, a four-time world champion seeded eighth, defeated Frenchman Mathieu Castagnet 11-8 11-7 12-14 11-6.
On the side court there were some lengthier matches – Cameron Pilley took 80 minutes to see off Nafiizwan Adnan to set up a meeting with defending champion Ashour, while Daryl Selby made it three Englishmen in the last sixteen with a 75-minute win over Steve Coppinger.
In the last match of the day Tarek Momen, the tenth seed, became the sixth Egyptian winner as he came from a game down to beat Switzerland’s Nicolas Mueller.
Round TWO:
[11] Omar Mosaad (Egy) 3-0 Ong Beng Hee (Mas) 11-5 , 11-4, 13-11 (44m)
[4] Nick Matthew (Eng) 3-0 Max Lee (Hkg) 11-7, 11-6, 11-6 (41m)
[8] Amr Shabana (Egy) 3-1 Mathieu Castagnet (Fra) 11-8, 11-7, 12-14 , 11-6 (55m)
[16] Miguel Angel Rodriguez (Col) 3-0 Leo Au (Hkg) 11-8, 11-5, 11-8 (38m)
Saurav Ghosal (Ind) 3-1 [15] Alister Walker (Bot) 11-7, 11-5, 7-11, 11-7 (55m)
Henrik Mustonen (Fin) 3-2 [7] Peter Barker (Eng) 2-11, 4-11, 11-6 rtd (36m)
[1] Ramy Ashour (Egy) 3-0 [Q] Fares Dessouki (Egy) 11-6, 11-6, 11-4 (23m)
[14] Cameron Pilley (Aus) 3-1 Nafiizwan Adnan (Mas) 11-9, 11-3, 9-11, 11-6 (80m)
[3] James Willstrop (Eng) 3-0 Tom Richards (Eng) 11-8, 11-3, 11-6 (39m)
[9] Borja Golan (Esp) 3-0 Cesar Salazar (Mex) 11-4, 11-6, 11-3 (30m)
[12] Simon Rosner (Ger) 3-0 Abdullah Al Mezayen (Kuw) 15-13, 11-7, 11-5 (59m)
[6] Mohamed Elshorbagy (Egy) 3-0 Omar Abdel Aziz (Egy) 11-4, 11-5, 11-6 (29m)
[5] Karim Darwish (Egy) 3-0 Olli Tuominen (Fin) 11-7, 11-5, 11-3 (33m)
[13] Daryl Selby (Eng) 3-1 Stephen Coppinger (Rsa) 11-9, 12-10, 9-11, 11-3 (75m)
[10] Tarek Momen (Egy) 3-0 Nicolas Mueller (Sui) 5-11, 11-5, 11-4, 11-3 (43m)
[2] Gregory Gaultier (Fra) 3-0 [Q] Matthew Karwalski (Aus) 11-9, 11-3, 11-5 (32m)