SQUASH

Abhay Singh loses to former world No 1 Gawad in Zurich thriller

India’s Abhay Singh lost to Egyptian former World No. 1 and world champion Karim Gawad in a thriller in the men’s quarterfinals of the Grasshopper Cup, a PSA Gold-level event, in Zurich.

World No 24 Singh recovered from 6-0 down to force the opening game into tie-break, and went toe-to-toe with world No 4 Gawad in the second, before the Egyptian second seed clinched the contest 12-10, 11-9.

“The pace was really fast, we’ve only played twice but I feel like we’ve played more than that. In Qatar (2025) he (Singh) beat me in four and today I got on court and thought I don’t want to lose again,” Gawad said.

“In best of three with one of the smartest and talented players on Tour, you can never see what he’s thinking with the next shot or the next rally. He can come back with crazy points as you saw in the first game when I was 7-0 up and he came back out of nowhere (and) in less than three minutes we were tied,” the Egyptian added.

– Team Sportstar

Published on Apr 25, 2026