HAVERFORDWEST-BORN Joel Makin produced brilliant form to reach the semi-finals of the Black Ball Open squash tournament in Cairo.

This was a fine performance from the world No 11 as he beat two players ranked above him on his way to the last four.

Following a first round 3-0 win over Egyptian Mohamed ElSherbini, he beat world No 5 Paul Coll from New Zealand 3-1 and then world No 6 Marwan Elshorbagy from Egypt 3-2.

In the last four, he faced yet another player ranked ahead of him - world No 9 and former world champion, Egypt’s Tarek Momen.

The Egyptian had won seven of their previous 10 meetings.

And it was Momen who came out on top again, although he had to recover from 2-0 down to win 7-11, 8-11, 11-7, 11-4, 11-4, with Joel appearing to tire towards the end.

Momen said afterwards: “I have to say I really respect Joel so much.

“He’s one of the toughest players on tour. I know it’s not easy to do what he did, and I don’t see many players like that.”

Joel, 28, is enjoying a good run of form, having recently won the Canadian Open in Calgary.

One of his ambitions is to get back into the world’s top eight as that would earn him a better seeding in top tournaments.

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