Saurav Ghosal’s dream run in the Channel VAS PSA Squash tournament came to an end after the world number 26 went down in three games against top seed Mohamed ElShorbagy in the semi-finals at St. George’s hill, Surrey.

The 31-year-old Ghosal had come through qualifying and then upset two top ranked players to reach his first semi-final of a PSA M100 category tournament and played his heart out against the pre-tournament favourite.

Ghosal clawed back from a 5-8 deficit in the opening game to set up a game ball at 10-9. But ElShorbagy managed to save the game and then went on to pocket it himself in 23 minutes with both players not making a single error through the game.

Errors did begin to creep in as the match progressed but both players fought hard for every point and it was probably the experience of ElShorbagy that saw him through as he grabbed the second match ball to win the encounter in 56 minutes in what was their first meeting since March 2015.

Ghosal was, however, happy with his performance and felt that had he taken the first game, things could have been different. “In terms of performance, I think I can be partly happy with it. I had a game ball in the first game, 10/9, he slammed a great crosscourt, and had I been 1/0, it could have made a slight difference maybe,” he was quoted as saying.

Later speaking to reporters, ElShorbagy admitted that he had to work hard for every point but was happy to go through.

“It’s funny because he came through qualifying and I was helping him through his second match of qualifying because we’re really good friends,” ElShorbagy was quoted as saying by the psaworldtour.com.

“He’s very good for the game and he was playing high-quality squash from the first point to the last. I just kept pushing and I’m glad it went my way in the end,” added the Egyptian.