Was this the right decision? 🤔 | Asal v Masotti | So you think you can ref? 

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Despite the punishing to Asal, Masotti played a wonderful squash, fully deserved!

Joey, I suspect the crowd reaction had nothing to do with the referee decisions... they are objective and impartial are they not 🤔. I suspect the crowd reaction may be because they are sick and tired of seeing the behaviour of this guy at every tournament he competes in. Perhaps they have simply had enough of it and are willing to demonstrate their dissatisfaction. Fair play to the crowd I say.

I played squash for decades and never once did I purposely stick my leg out to hinder my opponent. And neither did anyone else do this to me. Asal is playing a kind of squash that I neither recognise nor like.

looked like a deliberate trip to me. Super squash by both players more importantly.

The problem isn't whether the contact was intentional or not, the problem is that Asal is intentionally (maybe by now unconsciously) moving into the path between the opponent and the ball (which the rules clearly forbid), in order to block/disturb the opponent from getting to/hitting the ball. By doing so, contact will always be created (regardless of whether Asal intended or not, because he will always be in the way!). So Asal's opponent is forced to either make a huge circle to the ball, which avoids contact, but most likely loses the point, or go directly to the ball (as allowed by the rule), but crashing into Asal. In this video instance, you see this as Asal moves back into Masotti, rather than naturally moving to the T, which is more in the front.

Asal will pretend to move back to the T, but will choose a line that causes interference. In this case he steps back while the T is to the front knowing that Masotti will take this line. When you carefully look at his 'step back to the T' during his matches, you will recognise the pattern. Great decision!

either way, it's fantastic to see Asal lose

Saw the match live. The decision is entirely correct. Surprised commentators assume any influence of the crowd. They simply reacted to what was shown on the screen. A clear movement to make Masotti trip. Massotti actually said something about he didn’t feel it was on purpose and that he felt the match was fair. However that particular situation to me felt like Asal resorted to known tactics. So sad to see as his line hitting was excellent. Kudos to Masotti to defending Asal, but seriously let’s start defending him when he shows he has changed. And not before.

Where does Asal need to be after playing his shot? On the T. Where does he go? A step to the right and behind of the T, blocking the opponent's line. Pretty straightforward.

Very good decision. Well played Masotti. Asal needs to learn to play it fair

For me it's not the leg, it's the movement backwards that's the stroke, why move backwards when the T is in front

Deliberate trip, which is super dangerous and cynical. He got off lightly with a conduct stroke.

The right descision is for the referee to step into the court and kick Asal.

Easy conduct stroke, the movement was obvious. Asal was trying to get in the way.

Can’t fault the decisions. Asal is careless at best, and for a big guy he needs to concentrate on his movement.

I would like to know how many calls and/or referee decisions on average are made in matches that Asal plays. Compared to a more clean player like Gawad for example. I feel more interferences/stoppages are bad for the view rates of the sport.

The sigh of relief and the "uhhhh Jesus christ" at 3:10 is hilarious

It's simple, He's gonna back when he should be going left to the T. The only reason he is going back is to block. Such a shame. I see he is trying but it appears to of been engrained into his game. Good luck to James (one of the cleanest and nicest players in squash) rehabilitating him. It would be a pleasure to see a nice Asal game.

Asal is a disgrace. He deliberately blocks. He gives Squash a bad rep. He should be disqualified for life.

He cheats, plain and simple. It’s not like he has never been called before for numerous attempts at cheating. He just came off of suspension and clearly is right back to his old cheating ways. Asal should be suspended for the rest of the season.

I am no Asal fan, but in this case, if you play slow-mo, Asal's leg is actually pushed by Massoti's knee. So, the leg part was not intentional. Now whether you think he should have moved backwards or not, that's a harder decision. Sometimes it's hard to know if the opponent will go around you from the front or from the back, and you get out of the way in the wrong direction.

Regardless Asal past, in my opinion it was either a simple stroke for preventing a direct access to the ball or a conduct match. Because if it is considered as intentional, those kinds of moves have no place in the sport... But when we look at in slow mo, it seems that Masotti's knee hits Asal's calf so it does not seem intentional to me. If it occured before during the game, that as usual his back leg trails too much and he received a conduct warning for that (unless he has a full time conduct warning, with he shown previously would be legitimate) then the conduct stoke is logical. But it seems to me that the issue is in his footwork technique, which is clearly super efficient, but when he steps back, he often interferes with the movement of the opponent, look at this on his penultimate shot, Masotti is already super close to hit his right foot...

If you look at the video speed slowly, it's clear

Wrong decision. It should have been a stroke only. Analysis (warning it's long!): *Why should there be no conduct stroke?* The conduct stroke element of the combined decision was given on the incorrect hypothesis that Asal intentionally stuck his leg out. Close scrutiny in slo-mo from all available angles shows that Masotti's leg caught Asal's on the way through, which moved it outwards. The conduct stroke was wrong. A secondary matter: Masotti was pleading with the ref not to punish his opponent Asal on the basis of any intentional interference. Of course, it is not for Masotti to be making the decision and indeed it happened after the referee's decision. It was however very unusual and referees should be alert to the unusual and add it to the body of evidence before reaching their decision; and even be prepared to re-consider their decision in the face of the exceptional. *Why there should be a stroke* "However, Asal did move backwards and left, and quite slowly and lazily. The question is not weather he was moving towards or away from the T, but weather he was making reasonable effort to clear Masotti's path to the ball. Even this is not a definite transgression in this instance, because of the reasonable uncertainty he would experience about which way Masotti would come (again noted by some others who have commented). But his effort to clear was certainly not, shall we say "sprightly"; also as many have pointed out, he could have chosen a better direction to clear, and the unhelpful placement of his right foot (prior to Masottis leg colliding with it) was a degree of interference. As such, it is reasonable to contemplate a stroke. When you then look at how loose the ball comes out, this reinforces the conclusion of stroke. Likewise Masotti made very reasonable effort to play through the interference. The "Stroke" part of the decision was therefor correct. *Lessons Learned* Where there are wrong decisions, its important no only to identify that they are wrong and why, but also to identify the *cause* of the wrong decision: In this case the crowd and in turn the ref have got carried away because the incorrect judgement that Asal moved his leg out intentionally, and possibly also because of Asal's previous reputation. I agree with Joey Barrington's estimation that the crowd was influential in the outcome. The learning points for the official: It is of course not easy, but Ref's need to be *"level headed, keen scrutineers of all the evidence, and pro-active decision makers."* They must consciously (as in all professions where things get tense) avoid being "emotionally engaged reactors to events". When contemplating a conduct stroke, the official should pause to give themselves time to ask - _"Have I on-boarded the relevant evidence?" "Have I scrutinized it properly?" "have I factored it all in to my decision?"_ If the ref did this he would have been become alert to all of the several factors mentioned above, and would have arrived at a better decision. Stroke. *Footnote and suggestion for improving the rules.* Ref's are only human, and it is very difficult to be totally cool and clear minded. Surgeons, pilots, race-car drivers, and poker players all face the same challenge (though of course 3.5 out of 4 of those get paid a lot more than refs!). Where being a creature of emotion (ie human) is the risk, you can't totally remove that risk. But you can substantially mitigate it with a system safeguard. These can be very simple and extremely effective. For example in squash you could have a rule, that for a conduct stroke to be issued, both the Ref and the Video Ref must concur. It only takes a moment for the ref to consult with VR to say, "I propose conduct stroke, do you agree?"

If the commentator feels no conduct stroke should have been awarded it means he thinks Asal's backwards step was not deliberate but he didn't say this as I recall, it looks clear to me that it was and was therefore so dangerous it could have even been a conduct game or match (same thing at that point).

Asal bearing the consequence of his reputation. When slowing down I don't think it should be a conduct stroke

I don’t want to get into an Asal battle as I’ve always disliked him but I feel like he was a bit hard done by in this situation (mainly his fault to be honest for building his terrible reputation). In this case when I originally watched this I thought he tripped him but if you watch in slow motion you can see Masottis knee hits his leg first which is why it looks like Asal sticks his leg out so I genuinely believe the conduct stroke was a bit harsh and was awarded because of his reputation and the crowd booing. I agree though that Asals movement backward isn’t correct so should be a stroke for that. I would say though that in this tournament following his ban and his coaching from Willstrop that I think this was a massive improvement and if you listen to Masottis speech at the end I think he actually felt a bit bad for dramatising the situation as I think he thinks Asal played very clean for most of the match. I know he’s a d*ck but it does appear that he’s trying now so I’d like to give him one last chance, especially considering he’s one of the most promising talents for the future. Although time will tell and I appreciate we’re all tired of him dragging our sport through the mud

Players must make every effort to clear.

Definitely made an intentional move to obstruct... probably didn't intend to trip him just bump and make him go wide instead of direct line.

he has to move to the T, why did he move backwards? just to block, Conduct Stroke

If you slow down the payback speed at around 8 seconds in the video, you can CLEARLY see Asal raised his right leg to trip Masotti. Why does PSA still allow such unscrupulous player like Asal to continue to compete is beyond me!

This is not fair ASAL is required to change his habbit. Must be given a final warning, if still must banned for 6 months.

Absolutely pointless trying to judge this in real time. I'm no fan of asal I think he's a disgrace, but if you slow down to 0.25 it actually just looks like asal was unfortunate here and it's just a let. He got punished for his reputation rather than the incident in isolation. He can't complain too much though because he's the one who's created a situation where he won't receive the benefit of the doubt.

Give over Joey conduct stroke all day long.......Vanessa clealy thinks its a conduct stroke as she is saying nothing !!

Got this one wrong in my view. Masotti catches Asals leg on way through. Unfortunately Asals previous has created the bias that that Refs will now have.

I'm trying my very hardest to understand how anybody can see this as unintentional - he literally just puts his back leg out for no reason other than to impede Masotti. Weird...

Conduct Game . Deliberate act that injured the opponent.

Interestingly, Asal’s movement issues often come after he gets a loose ball in the middle of the court from his opponent. A savvy pro can always “negotiate” contact into Asal from the middle of the court - hence why this referee initially gave a No Let. For those saying he stepped into the line of Masotti, had Masotti been at the T, he would have had an easy unobstructed line to the ball - but I suspect Masotti would have still found contact with him regardless. Unfortunately, for Asal, he’s lost any benefit of the doubt with the refs and most viewers. Gonna be tough for him to shed that..

Chuck Norris is proud of Asal.

Slowing the video down from the front.. the stroke isn't the right decision Masotti took Asal's leg, then he didn't even fail on his knee and he was holding his knee.. He was cheeky! I think the referee has to get a warning!

Squash its now in olimpics games, Asal dont deserve to play there, Asal its not fair play

Asal plays his shot while balanced on both feet - his next step, with his left leg could perhaps be accepted as just a normal movement - BUT the following step with his right leg is clearly not normal - it's an unnatural change of direction back UP THE COURT - and looks like a clear attempt to obstruct Masotti..with the clear accompanying risk of tripping him. I like Joey Barrington a lot & respect his role & important contribution to the developing profile of this wonderful sport....so I feel disappointed and very surprised that he couldn't see that this was yet another case of dangerous play (and cheating) by this player.

Asal giving props to another player? Now that's a scandal.

ref got that spot on!

As I recall, the original feedback for why SQUASH wasnt permitted in the original olympic attempt was due to the lack of sway of referees.

I was more shocked by the announcer saying “Jesus Christ!” After the subsequent furious rally, than the usual Asal nonsense :)

The referees are just bullying Asal at this point

What could Asal have done different? Bad decission...

Hope both players are at peace.

It looked like an accident to me

Mr. Masotti, don’t be a nice guy and tell off playing unfairly ☹️ Come on people, ot has to finish one day!!! ☝🏻

$100 USD he did it intentionally.

They need to improve the technology. You have situations where there’s a double bounce, the player knows it (who should have gotten the point), and cases like here where you can’t see what’s going on, and the technology is easily presently available to know such things. Asal got hurt by his reputation here. The video was inconclusive in terms of what was happening in regards to the first decision, which cost Asal 3(!) points.

That Asal keeps having these 'moments' is as completely unacceptable as it is completely inexplicable. It's just bizarre. I can't believe that a player of Asals talant, let alone his ranking, would _consciously_ engage in this type of stuff. I tend to believe these actions are most likely 'brain fades', artifacts from his early junior career that he just spontaneously reverts to on occasion. And this would appear to be borne-out by Asal's apologetic manner after the match. I mean, he looked as confused after the point as I did. I'm not excusing him, he needs to do something to try and stop it. I just can't believe that he's on court thinking to himself *"Ok, this is a REALLY big point here, and I'm not talanted enough to win it, so... what if I just stick out my leg and trip the other guy over? Yeah, that's it! Good plan! I'm sure nobody will notice, victory is mine!"* It just doesn't seem all that likely, does it?

Nothing else but deliberate!! - the worse unsportsmanship squash player Ive seen at international level. This is not the first hes done it and his team is not helping too or is Asal just refusing to listen. Hes ruining this game by coming up with all these dirty tactics!

Surprise Surprise Guess who it is again with the controversial movement Why always Asal ?

Asal has great talent but his dirty tactics at time is utterly disgusting

Should've included the part where Masotti speaks!

He seemed to stiffen his leg to leave it in the path of his opponent. He had the advantage in the rally so I don’t understand why you would move backwards. You’d move forward ready to cut out the next shot. He’s an amazing player but he does seem to do this thing where he stops and stiffens himself as if to say, I’m not in the way instead of continuing to move.

Joey is always in this idiots camp and he needs to get on the right side of history, he’s the equivalent of a Lance Armstrong apologist with regards to Asal

Not sure on the precise rules. It was definitely a stroke and definitely a deliberate trip. Whether in the rules that's a conduct stroke or more I'm not sure.

sorry ..but when will this improve? it is not harsh enough, how can we accept this? direct conduct match should be given , this could injure a player, and is clearly deliberate.

Sad for squash. He needs an mental coach that can help him. Lifting your leg, thinking no one sees it, is behavour of 8 year olds.

Also, I found Masotti’s movement at 9-8 to win that point more egregious than the Asal conduct stroke movement. But, benefit of the doubt…

These "coincidences" will continue to happen until someone tears a ligament or worse. And then people wonder how this could be allowed to happen.

3:43 Kicking your opponent is not allowed.

PSA leadership: muppets. Asal obviously needs a one year suspension. He has learned nothing.

I will never understand why Asal continually does these things. The man is so talented and could hild the world number 1 spot for as long as he chooses. He certainly has the skill and ability. Why throw all those years of incredibly hard work away for such silly mistakes. Yes collisions happen, but Asals look deliberate. Mostafa, i hope you read this, mate just play squash, dont get upset. If your opponent is better on the day, congradulate them and work out what you could have done to win. You have all the ability in the world, dont throw that gift away because of foolishness.

Ability and talent are meaningless without sportsmanship.. Without sportsmanship there is no sport.

I personally HATE Asal, but in this case I think it should have been a simple let. Ref forget to consider the whole game. As far as I remember Asal didn't do anything scetchy the whole match and suddenly he get a stroke and conduct stroke... Just give a let and tell him to be more careful... Very bad ref and again I'm not an Asal fan!

Conduct stroke

I have respect for Joey, but every time he suggests that wasn't intentional and didn't warrant a conduct stroke, a little part of me died. This was 100% intentional and he has form for this type of behaviour, not to mention he is JUST returned from serving a ban for unsportsmanlike conduct.

You reap what you sow. Asal should not get the benefit of the doubt, maybe with a few years of clean play he can earn that privilege back again.

They will likely discipline him for this nasty intentional move.

Conduct stroke if first offence of this type in n the game.

Too harsh a decision and biased decision against Asal.. I would recommend only a Yes Let

Please keep banning Asal until he recognises the authority of the rules and respects the safety of his opponents.

I wonder if Mr. Asal will be a member of the Egyptian Olympic team in 2028?

Just not cricket! The commentator calling on Jesus Christ ?? what a shambles🫣 3:12

Asal will definitely hit him in the next meet up

All that guy does is cheats and act like an tool. I wish his ban was permanent. I miss the good old days of squash with Ramy and Shabana, incredible players and pure class act.

If he does it on purpose (which I doubt) I struggle to understand why - he can easily beat everyone on tour, except maybe for top3-5 players, where it's always very competitive and back and forth

This movement wasn’t egregious at all. When a ball’s left in the middle of the court, nearly EVERY player moves and creates some little bit of obstacle after they hit their shot. The more I look at this video, the more I think the original call was correct. I’ve ever been a fan of players “camping out” behind their opponent after they’ve hit a mid court shot, somewhat deep in the back of the service box, then expecting a decision. Sadly, Asal won’t get the benefit of any doubt with his previous behaviors.

Bye bye asal 😅

Here is another demonstration of Asal assaulting the game of squash. So disgraceful and sad. How much longer?

He needs a lengthy ban

Asal knows exactly what he's doing..being banned hasn't had the desired effect, what next?

Asal reaping the rewards of the years of his cheating. PSA should have dealth with it years earlier, but better late than never

Again and again, Asal.

masotti should not have tried to defend asal. this kind of leg interference could potentially break someone's neck one day, and anyone encouraging it, is not being a sportsman. asal should be permanently banned

need to say that massoti's act falling is better that the world cup footballers🤪

absolute disgrace ASAL, should be banned for season, tactics never seen before never pay to see this guy, complete ASSHAL!

Asal is the worst cheater in PSA history. To clarify Asal moves back into Mosotti to block him causing deliberate interference.

Asal still there….? Wth

Disagree withe commentators. You have to be hard on foul play, especially from Asal!!!!!!

Ashol at his best again. That was a conscience, deliberate act to TRIP and therefore injury Masotti. It was an absolute dog act from a dog player. How much longer to we have to put up with this cheater on the circuit. PSA do something about this as all previous attempts have done nothing.

Ban the cheat ... again

Don't want to see a video with Assal

Asal is a disgrace in the name of this game.