Nour powers past Raneem as Mo throws down gauntlet to Ali
By ELLIE MAWSON in Shanghai 

Egypt’s World No.5 Nour El Tayeb and World No.2 Mohamed ElShorbagy lifted the first titles of the new season after defeating compatriots and World No.1s Raneem El Welily and Ali Farag to claim the J.P. Morgan China Squash Open, PSA World Tour Gold tournament titles.

El Tayeb stunned defending champion El Welily in a thrilling five-game battle to take the first silverware of the new PSA World Tour season as she displayed a formidable performance on the glass court atop the Peninsula Shanghai.

The last time El Tayeb got the better of El Welily was at the 2018-19 PSA World Championships in Chicago, when she claimed a shock victory over the then-reigning World Champion.

And El Tayeb once again showed that she has what it takes to challenge for the major titles this season as she held off a resilient El Welily to be crowned the women’s China Open champion for the first time in her career.

“It didn’t seem like it was ending, I can’t believe I’m the winner,’ said El Tayeb afterwards. “Throughout the whole match I was reminding myself that it’s good to be in the final, even though in the fourth game I was leading and I started to see the finish line a bit. I had to remind myself that I was playing Raneem and that the finish line might not happen.

“When she won the fourth I was a bit defeated and then she started the fifth very well but Ali [Farag] told me to just dig in. Last match I played last season was against her and I saw where my level was, and I wanted this match to be another indicator of where my level was.

“I can’t believe I won, it feels a bit like a dream because throughout the match, I was tired and I had to keep reminding myself of one more rally at a time. It’s a dream start to the season and hopefully I can keep going.”

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Meanwhile, ElShorbagy moved a step closer to claiming his World No.1 spot back after defeating current incumbent Ali Farag to win the men’s China Open title.

ElShorbagy, the 2016 champion, started on fire as he raced into a 7-0 lead, before comfortably putting himself in the driving seat of the match with an 11-3 win in the first. He kept up the relentless pressure to double his lead, despite a much improved performance from Farag in the second.

Farag refused to go down without a fight, however, as he fought back in the third. But it was not enough to disrupt ElShorbagy’s game plan as he took the fourth to win his second China Open title.

“It’s the kind of match I want to be in this season,” said 28-year-old ElShorbagy afterwards. “I want to be playing finals, especially with him. I want to beat him this season, I want to get his World No.1 spot and I’m going to be hard to stop this season. I told him after the match that I hope that if I’m going to get it then he’s not going to give it to me easy, because I like the challenge and I didn’t give it to him easy.

“This season I’m going to get back at him, every session in the summer break I was thinking about how I could beat him and get the No.1 back. What he did last season was unbelievable, he lost only in the quarters last year, I’ve never faced a guy as consistent as him and he is so tough to play.

“I’m up for the challenge and I look forward to playing against him more and I’m sure he will come back strong next time.”

The next PSA World Tour tournament take places from September 9-14 when the Open de France – Nantes 2019 presented by Tailor Capital begins.
 
J.P. Morgan China Squash Open, Shanghai, China.

Men’s final:
[2] Mohamed ElShorbagy (EGY) bt [1] Ali Farag (EGY) 3-1: 11-3, 11-9, 5-11, 11-8 (60m)

Women’s final:
[3] Nour El Tayeb (EGY) bt [1] Raneem El Welily (EGY) 3-2: 11-9, 9-11, 11-9, 9-11, 12-10 (70m)
 

Report by ELLIE MAWSON (PSA). Edited by ALAN THATCHER.

Pictures courtesy of PSA

Former Ireland fly-half Tony Ward says coach Joe Schmidt has assembled the "strongest Irish squad ever to go to a World Cup" for the tournament in Japan.

Ireland will bid to progress beyond the quarter-finals for the first time.

"There is no question this is a much stronger squad than in 2015 with real quality cover in every position," said Ward.

"When Joe names his 23, the eight in reserve are almost all impact players who can make a difference."

He added: "There are grounds for optimism."

Ireland fell to Argentina at the last-eight stage of the 2015 World Cup after a number of key players were ruled out by injuries during the competition.

Since then Schmidt has set about increasing the depth of his squad and when his 31-man panel was announced last Monday, long-serving second row Devin Toner was among a number of big names missing.

A comprehensive defeat by England in a World Cup warm-up game on 24 August was followed up by back-to-back preparation victories over Grand Slam Six Nations champions Wales in Cardiff and Dublin over the last two weeks.

"I think we are in a good place now despite what happened at Twickenham a fortnight ago," 19-times capped Ireland international Ward told BBC Radio Ulster.

"That dampened public expectation but the appetite has been whetted again by the performances which have seen us beat the Grand Slam champions twice in a week.

"Given what we witnessed at Twickenham though our optimism has to be very guarded but that is no bad thing."

'Malfunctioning line-out and wrong decision'

Saturday's game at Aviva Stadium marked captain Rory Best's final appearance for Ireland in Dublin, and also Schmidt's last home game in charge.

"The feeling towards Rory Best and the pride people take in the manner in which he has captained Ireland is immense," added Ward.

"For me he's under pressure from the line-out, there's no doubt about that. It hasn't been functioning as Ireland would have liked.

"Hopefully it will be better in two weeks' time and for the rest of the World Cup but as a captain he is par excellence and invariably he makes the right calls.

"I think there is still a question mark over Jean Kleyn as he is going and Devin Toner is not. I think that was the wrong decision. The decision is made but that is my personal opinion.

"Joe has certainly tried to cover every possible angle, every permutation, and he has got a lovely dilemma to deal with in the middle of the field where he is spoiled for choice."

Sexton and Murray reunited

Fly-half Johnny Sexton played for the first time this season in Saturday's 19-10 win over Wales, while Conor Murray also started as Ireland's highly influential half-back pairing of recent years was reunited.

"I thought Sexton did ok. There was a lot of ring rust and a few uncharacteristic loose passes, while some of the kicks were a little loose too," said Ward.

"He'll be happy to get a game under his belt and is still of course very important for Ireland but Conor Murray was slightly the more impressive on Saturday for me.

"They are without doubt our best two half-backs but hopefully Joey Carbery will be back ready to play at 10 or 15.

"I've been really impressed with Jack Carty too and when you consider that John Cooney couldn't make the squad and you had Luke McGrath shading Kieran Marmion, which a bit like the Toner decision has been controversial to say the least, they are all positive factors for me.

"That is the quality of the competition in the Irish squad at this point in time."

Semi-final hopes 'hard to call'

Ireland, now number one in the IRB rankings, will begin their World Cup campaign against Scotland on 22 September, followed by their remaining Pool A fixtures against Japan, Russia and Samoa.

Southern hemisphere giants New Zealand or South Africa are their likely quarter-final opponents should they, as expected, progress from their pool.

"It's hard to call whether we can reach the semi-finals but I believe we are in with a real chance," continued Ward.

"Four years ago and at the previous World Cup we had a much more favourable draw but this is a tough one.

"I think the pool is OK - Scotland should be the hardest game with Japan probably the second most difficult match only six days later. Then it gets relatively easier against Russia and Samoa.

"Certainly when we get to the quarter-finals you are talking about the All Blacks or the Springboks and they don't come any more difficult than that.

"I would put England in that category too at this point but going into this competition, for me, New Zealand and South Africa are the two outstanding squads."

PORTIMAO, Portugal – Alvaro Bautista overcame a poor start to outrun Jonathan Rea in the final dash to the checkered flag in Sunday’s World Superbike race at the Algarve Int’l Circuit.

Rea got away from the field from the pole after winning the Superpole race earlier in the day, but Bautista struggled off the line and slotted into sixth on the opening lap.

Toprak Razgatlioglu got off to a fast start to slot into second ahead of Rea’s Kawasaki teammate Leon Haslam. The Pata Yamaha duo of Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark were next, with Bautista giving chase from sixth.

Bautista soon began his climb through the field, first dispatching van der Mark at the end of lap one down the frontstretch. He disposed of Lowes two laps later, taking the third position on the fourth lap.

With 15 laps left Bautista briefly moved to the point, but Razgatlioglu was still in the mix and took his turn at the front over Bautista and Rea. Bautista didn’t ride in second for long and he soon returned to the front, dropping Razgatlioglu out of the lead.

Rea soon moved back into second ahead of Razgatlioglu, but he found himself trying to track down Bautista at the front. The gap between the lead duo was roughly a second, but Rea slowly began to cut into Bautista’s lead.

On the final lap Rea closed the gap dramatically on Bautista, but the Ducati power in Bautista’s bike was enough to keep him in the lead as they raced towards the finish line. The gap at the finish line was .111 seconds.

Razgatlioglu finished third behind the lead duo to complete the podium, followed by Lowes in fourth and Haslam in fifth.

MONZA, Italy – Charles Leclerc thrilled Italian fans by holding off the Mercedes duo of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton to win the Italian Grand Prix Sunday at Autodromo Nazionale Monza.

The victory for Leclerc was the first for Ferrari at the brand’s home track since Fernando Alonso won at Monza in 2010.

One week after his first Formula One victory in Belgium, the 21-year-old Leclerc scored his second win after holding off Hamilton and, later, Bottas in the run to the checkered flag.

Hamilton hounded Leclerc for multiple laps after pit stops, with Hamilton’s medium tires giving him an advantage over the hard tires on Leclerc’s Ferrari. Slowly but surely Hamilton’s tires fell off, allowing Leclerc to maintain his advantage at the front.

Leclerc made one mistake, overshooting the first turn chicane on lap 36, but he successfully blocked a pass attempt by Hamilton and held the lead. Six laps later it was Hamilton who overshot the chicane, allowing a fast closing Bottas to take over second.

Bottas had pitted later than Hamilton for medium tires and had been closing on the lead duo for multiple laps before Hamilton’s error moved Bottas into second and in clear site of Leclerc.

Try as he might, Bottas couldn’t get close enough to Leclerc to mount a significant challenge. Leclerc was able to hold serve, getting to the finish line .835 seconds ahead of Bottas.

“It’s the Italian Grand Prix, obviously from the beginning of the week it has been crazy,” said Leclerc, who moved into third in the Formula One standings ahead of his teammate Sebastian Vettel. “I came here with my first win and yeah, to win straight away the second one in front of all the fans who have welcomed me extremely well after the first victory, it’s just unbelievable.

Leclerc said he felt like the Mercedes cars were faster than his Ferrari throughout the day, but he had enough fight in his car to hold them both off.

“It was extremely difficult. They were very quick, they were quicker than us I think today,” Leclerc said. “More than that, they had two cars to fight us. One car went long, Valtteri went a bit longer (before his pit stop), Lewis pitted more or less at the same time as me. It was very difficult for us after that, but we managed the race very well and I’m very happy to take the win home.”

Hamilton settled for third after pitting late in the race for fresh tires, which allowed him to set the fastest lap of the race to gain an extra championship point. Daniel Ricciardo finished an impressive fourth for Renault, his first top-five finish since joining the French manufacturer.

Nico Hulkenberg gave Renault two cars in the top-five in fifth, followed by Red Bull’s Alexander Albon, Racing Point’s Sergio Perez, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi and McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Ferrari’s Vettel struggled all day, resulting in a 13th-place finish.

INDIANAPOLIS – Kevin Harvick earned his third Big Machine Vodka 400 pole during qualifying Sunday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Harvick, in his No. 4 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing, claimed the pole with a fast lap at 185.766 mph. It’s Harvick’s 30th career pole in 672 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series starts and his third pole in 19 races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“Clean air will be huge,” Harvick said. “I thought we had a fast car yesterday in race practice. Clean air and strategy are important because handling will come into play at some point. You will have to hang on to them at the beginning of the run so there are a number of things having to come into play.

“Hopefully, today, we can finish where we start.”

The most important story in Sunday’s qualifications involve the four drivers trying to get locked into the 16-driver lineup for NASCAR’s Playoffs. Two of those made the top five, including Clint Bowyer, currently 14th in the standings. He qualified third at 185.277 mph in the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Ford and starts behind second-place Paul Menard’s No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford, who qualified at 185.724 mph.

Menard is the 2011 Big Machine Vodka 400 winner.

Team Penske’s Joey Logano qualified fourth at 185.193 mph in the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford. Jimmie Johnson, who is on the outside looking in at the playoff battle, qualified fifth in the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.

The other two drivers fighting to make the playoffs are Daniel Suarez, who starts 20th in the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Ford at 183.643 mph. Ryan Newman starts 22nd in the No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford at 183.275 mph.

Newman and Suarez are tied for the final playoff position entering Sunday’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Johnson is 18 points below the cut line and there are two ways for him to get into the playoffs – hope Newman and Suarez both have terrible finishes or win the race.

The top 14 drivers are locked into the lineup based on wins and points. Positions 1-10 are race winners, with Kyle Busch leading the standings with four victories and 983 points and last week’s victor at Darlington, Erik Jones, the last winner to be locked in with a victory. He is currently 10th.

Positions 11-14 are locked in based on points.

Bowyer has position No. 15 with 625 points, Suarez is tied with Newman with 617 points each, but Suarez gets the position based on a tiebreaker. Johnson has 599 points.

Because of questionable weather, the starting time for Sunday’s Big Machine Vodka 400 has been moved up to 2:05 p.m. Eastern Time.

Big Machine Vodka 400 Starting Lineup

1. Kevin Harvick
2. Paul Menard
3. Clint Bowyer
4. Joey Logano
5. Jimmie Johnson
6. Brad Keselowski
7. Kyle Busch
8. Kurt Busch
9. Ryan Blaney
10. Aric Almirola
11. Daniel Hemric
12. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
13. Alex Bowman
14. Erik Jones
15. Bubba Wallace
16. Chris Buescher
17. David Ragan
18. Austin Dillon
19. Kyle Larson
20. Daniel Suarez
21. Michael McDowell
22. Ryan Newman
23. Ryan Preece
24. Chase Elliott
25. Ty Dillon
26. Matt DiBenedetto
27. Martin Truex Jr.
28. Matt Tifft
29. William Byron
30. Corey LaJoie
31. Landon Cassill
32. Parker Kligerman
33. Denny Hamlin
34. Ross Chastain
35. B.J. McLeod
36. Ryan Sieg
37. Reed Sorenson
38. Garrett Smithley
39. Josh Bilicki
40. J.J. Yeley

CONCORD, N.C. — The large crowd assembled behind the main grandstand at Iowa’s Knoxville Raceway wanted it, and legendary sprint car drivers and longtime rivals Steve Kinser and Sammy Swindell gave it to them.

Race fans attended the “Ralph Sheheen Show” on the afternoon of the 59th NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals finale simply to see these two on stage together, hear their stories and, hopefully, experience a moment they would remember forever much like the often ferocious battles the two waged on the race track.

That moment would come, but first the pair who will always be linked in the annals of motorsports history, entertained their loyal fans with memories, jokes, jabs and something that was rarely seen during the days they were dominating the sport — smiles.

For decades, Kinser, the 20-time World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series champion, and Swindell, one of sprint car racing’s most successful competitors, were rarely seen together. We at SPEED SPORT were certainly surprised when each accepted the invitation to appear together.

They were fierce rivals on the track and off of it, and neither man disputes that.

“In racing, it is great to have rivalries and Sammy made that pretty easy,” Kinser laughed.

Neither Kinser nor Swindell wanted to get too deep into their battles on the track or their disagreements off of it, but both acknowledged they tangled many times through the years. Kinser said: “We never got to too many blows, but we wrestled around a little bit.”

While Kinser and Swindell each danced around saying anything too nice about the other, they acknowledged what those who cheered them in the past and on this warm Iowa afternoon already knew, together they put sprint car racing, the World of Outlaws and the Knoxville Nationals on the map.

They also knew without the other one that would have never happened.

“It is hard to explain but when you go up against somebody week after week, I want to win and he wants to win, you push a little harder,” the 61-year-old Swindell said. “It’s like the rabbit is out there. There he goes and I have to run this dude down. Sometimes it got you on the edge, but the biggest thing it taught you was how to get right there on the edge without going over.

“You can’t beat somebody if you don’t finish,” Swindell added. “If you can run as hard as you can and you run second, well, that’s OK. But I wanted to win, too, and sometimes that happened. Racing against him made me a lot better.”

“He was a damn good racer, but I’d like to leave it right there,” Kinser said dryly. “Me and Sammy bumped a lot of wheels over the years, but we probably leaned on each other more than we did anybody else, but a lot of times we were racing through a lot of traffic. It’s what built the sport.”

Kinser, who turned 65 earlier this year, ran his last race in 2016 at New York’s Lebanon Valley Speedway. Swindell was quick to remind folks who won that All Star sprint car feature.

“His last race was Lebanon Valley and it’s ironic but I won the last race he ran and I didn’t know it until after the fact,” Swindell grinned. “I would have given him a pat on the back if I had known.”

Swindell, who competed in the Nationals driving his son Kevin’s car, said he’ll race “until I’m not having fun driving.

“Last night, I thought we were going to get in until we had a little issue,” he added. “I was running around the top and I had the groove, and I thought, ‘Man, this is cool.’

And whether you call them Steve and Sammy or “The King” and “Slammin’ Sammy,” it was damn cool to see them together.

But the interview ended and the two stepped forward on the stage. Then, as host Sheheen smoothly stepped back, these two legendary Outlaws joined hands and lifted one another’s arm triumphantly into the air.

They smiled. The crowd smiled. It was the moment everyone wanted, possibly even Kinser and Swindell.

Editor’s Note: To watch the “Ralph Sheheen Show” with Sammy Swindell and Steve Kinser, log on to SPEED SPORT.com or look for it on SoundCloud, Stitcher, iTunes, iHeartRadio and Spotify.