Matthew's World Championship finale ended by unstoppable ElShorbagy

England’s Nick Matthew bows out of World Championships in valiant quarter-final defeat to World No.2 Mohamed ElShorbagy.

In his final ever World Championships, three-time World Champion Nick Matthew battled spiritedly with the advantage of the home crowd before succumbing to Mohamed ElShorbagy in four games 11-7, 11-6, 5-11, 11-6.

In an opening game characterised by long rallies, high physicality and outstanding moments of improvisation, World No.5 Matthew started the more brightly of the pair taking an enterprising 5-1 lead.

However, the Egyptian ElShorbagy demonstrated incredible grit and physicality to wrestle back control of the opening game to take the lead.

ElShorbagy, runner-up in 2012 and 2014, maintained his dominance in the second game grinding down a resurgent Matthew to take a two-game advantage.

Matthew, who famously powered to World Championship glory in Manchester in 2013, utilised the partisan home support to his favour, emphatically battling back in the third-set.

The 37-year-old Sheffield man upped the tempo of the game, enforcing the 26-year-old ElShorbagy into mistakes and capitalising on several risky drop shots to regather his momentum and take the third game in style.

ElShorbagy, who has reached the final of every major championship event this year, regained his composure to spoil home-hope Matthew’s desires of a fairy-tale ending to his illustrious World Championship career.

After the match, England’s most successful male commended the quality of his opponent ElShorbagy, who will now face number one seed Gregory Gaultier in the Semi-Finals.

Just want to say 3 things to everyone.
#1. Thank you for all the support ????
#2. Merry Christmas ??
#3. See you all in 2018 ????
Love, the Wolf ?? https://t.co/gJdg0jl3n6

— Nick Matthew OBE (@nickmatthew) December 14, 2017

“I think I shocked him and put him on the back foot. I did ask lots of questions from him tonight and he came back with all the answers,” said the nine-time British national champion Matthew.

"Mentally he seems to be raising his game each week. I’ve tried to come out firing, but he’s had all the answers today.”

"The age gap between us is a great thing for both of us, because it’s not normal in sport that you have a rivalry with someone with that much of an age difference.”

“I got a couple of wins on him early when he was coming up. But I’m proud I’m still competing with someone who’s obviously at the peak of his powers.”

Three-time British Open champion, Matthew, was the final English player competing in the tournament after earlier round defeats of James Willstrop and Daryl Selby in the men’s event.