All the best players outside the top 23 in the world arrived at my home base, Millfield School, where the qualification for the Saudi Arabian ATCO Open took place. Outside of the World Open, this is the strongest event on the calender offering a $250000 prize fund. The largest to date.

My father helped present the draw, i was quite nervous as i wasnt sure if my injury had healed. I had done everything i could possibly do to help the case. Due to this attention to detail, it was about 75% healed. I managed to get through my 1st round very comfortably playing simple error free squash which took about 45mins.

My next opponent had just produced a very good win over my Training partner and fellow Millfieldian, Mohammed El Shorbaggy. This was Julian Illingworth the USA number 1 and world number 38. In the first game of my match with Julian, i was very loose and quite agitated. I was not completely confident on my right leg.

However after a massive rally in the second game and a surge of Nadal like testosterone mangaged to take the match by the neck and stormed through to a very solid 3-1 victory, to earn my place in main event for the 4th successive year. This will take place in Dec 2008. I really enjoyed playing a major tournament at my home club and it was great to have it so well supported.