TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA IT was a historic moment for Egypt and it did not wish anything to spoil the men’s team tennis final against Kuwait at the Arab Games on Tuesday.

In a little over three hours, Sherif Hussein and Mohamed Mahmoud disposed of their respective rivals to grab the gold medal after 46 years at the at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex.

The Egyptian men had last won the team gold in 1965.

After that it finished runnerup in Beirut in 1997. It had twice won the bronze medal, falling to other African rivals mostly.

Having reached the final unbeaten, the North Africans were in red-hot form and Hussein put them into the lead with a 6-2, 6-1 win against Abdullah Maqdas on the centre court. The scoreline in the 68-minute rubber clearly states how one-way affair it was.

Mahmoud was also expected to emulate Hussein against Mohammad Ghareeb and pull off the title. The Kuwaiti however had other game plan.

Despite playing three matches in a day yesterday, Ghareeb clinched the tie-break in the opening set to turn the heat on Mahmoud.

The Egyptian responded gallantly and levelled the rubber, winning the second set at 6-1. In the ensuing decider, Mahmoud fired thee of his 10 aces in the rubber to break his rival in the ninth game and then script the historic triumph, bringing some consolation for the women’s team loss to Tunisia in the final.

He was delighted with finishing the job well. “I am very happy with the victory. It was a long week and very tough to play Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon in the group,”said Mahmoud after the 2-hour, 3- minute win.

“I had a few issues in the opening set. But from the second set and onwards, I played better. Ghareeb is a tough pro, having played a lot of tournament.

I raised my level and managed to beat him with much better game,” added Mahmoud.