Rahman fails in the quarter-finals in Washington

On the first leg of his short North American tour, Aqeel Rahman only took the court twice, and after a confident opening win, the Salzburg ace had to succumb to Frenchman Edwin Clyne in four sets in the quarter-finals of the PSA World Classification Championship. Washington (USA).

Victory in 23 minutes

After earning a first-round bye as the tournament’s number five, Rahman started the tournament strong. He needed just 23 minutes to sweep Pakistan’s Mohammed Farhan Hashim 11:8, 11:3, 11:7. But in the quarter-finals, a bigger level awaited Klein. Rahman lost in five sets to the French player in Paris in April. This time Salzburg got off to a better start. He won the first set 11:8. The second goal kept it open for a long time, but Klein scored twice at 9:9.

Rahman was very impatient

“Unfortunately, the third set was messy from the start. I wanted to score points that were too easy, and therefore I couldn’t find the right rhythm. Because of this impatience, I made some mistakes. This was my weakest stage in the whole match. There were also some lucky strikes from my opponent and close referee decisions, from my point of view, unfortunately, Rahman recalls at 7:11. In the final set, Salzburg was already 3:8 behind and started a strong comeback, was able to fend off the first match point, but in the end sat on the world number 90 from France and won 11:8.

Motivation to go to Canada

“Looking back, I’m disappointed because I feel like I denied myself a better result, maybe even a win, because of my many mistakes. On the other hand, when I think about the way I kept the game open despite that.” Error-prone performance “This shows that it was not a bad match and that I still have a lot of potential to play in this league. This keeps me positive and motivates me for my next assignment at PSA next week in London, Canada,” says Rahman, who is there. First, he meets Edwin Klein again and is eager for revenge.