Karim Abdel Gawad produces Wimbledon talent show after injury hell

By Alan Thatcher

March 22, 2023 - 7:10pm

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WIMBLEDON — “It’s like Saturday night fever!” drifted PSA commentator Joey Barrington’s phrase through the curtains at the Optasia Championships. Amid some of the bluster, bitterness and bad blood of, well, the whole of the season, how good was it to see a player of Karim Abdel Gawad’s stature and downright brilliance back on tour?

Gawad was playing his second event back after 10 months out, four of which were consigned to a wheelchair, of an injury initially stretching back to 2020.

But here he was at The Wimbledon Club on Wednesday night, coming from a game down against Peruvian dangerman Diego Elias, vying for World No.1 again this week, scampering to all corners, relishing the quick pace and conjuring windmill fakes and cocked leg drop winners. He enthralled the Wimbledon crowd before Elias was forced to retire in the fourth game with a leg injury. 

“I’ve been missing it a lot and it’s been a depressing and worrying 10 months for me, I don’t know if I would be back or not,” Gawad told Squash Mad afterwards. “I’m just very grateful for every moment I am spending on court.”

His injury (plantar fasciitis) was diagnosed as damage to the fat pad which cushions the heel when in contact with the ground – a condition he revealed to Squash Mad in November which affected “one in a million athletes”.

“I went to the best foot and ankle specialist in Europe and he told me that he hadn’t come across my case in 40 years, it was a case studied in college but he hadn’t seen it before,” he added after his 7-11, 11-5, 12-10, 4-0 win.