Highland squash star Greg Lobban has made the semi-finals of the men’s doubles at the Commonwealth Games.
Lobban and Rory Stewart were clinical to see off Australia’s Zac Alexander and Ryan Cuskelly and keep up Scotland’s chances of a medal on the court.
The Scottish pair took the first game 11-2 and were pushed deeper into the second, before triumphing 11-9.
They will now return to the show court at University of Birmingham on Sunday afternoon to face England’s Daryl Wilby and Adrian Waller, after they won a titanic tussle with Canada 2-1.
“We knew it was going to be tough – that was probably the toughest one we could have had in the quarter-final,” said Lobban. “We’d been training with them quite a bit and the Australians’ record speaks for itself. We came out solid and we knew we had to be on top form. I think we were.
“Rory came and whispered some words of wisdom in my ear (during the first game) and that helped. From 2-2 we really zoned in on what we were trying to do.
“It was kind of a perfect performance. We know that was our zoned-in performance during that first game and how well we can play.
“It got a bit tetchy in the second game, a lot of lets and ones we thought we should have had the match on. But that shows good mental strength to finish a match like that, because it’s not easy to do that in the quarter-finals.”
The first game was a brutal slug-fest, as it took five minutes for the first point to be scored.
A couple of dubious let-calls seemed to fire up the Scottish pair and they pushed into a 9-2 advantage by cleverly maneuvering the Australian pair around the court.
They closed the deal to take the first game and kept up the pressure at the start of the second on Alexander and Cuskelly.
Lobban was finding the corners of the court with regularity and Stewart was a consistent presence on the backhand side.
The Australians rallied to level the second game at 6-6 and made Scotland work for the win, saving one game ball before eventually succumbing to the Scots.
Lobban had lost in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles on Friday night, as his wife Donna and cousin Cam Pilley of Australia beat him and Lisa Aitken 2-1. He also lost out at the same stage of the singles and is motivated to get further in the competition at the third time of asking.
“I’m determined on a personal level but as a Scottish Squash performance, we were disappointed with Friday, we had a tough day,” added Lobban. “To come back and turn it around, shows good character and resilience in the whole team, not just myself and Rory.”
The North Kessock native has grown a distinctive mullet and moustache over the last year, which is proving to be somewhat of a good-luck charm.
“There’s not really a story behind it,” he said. “It took me about six months to grow to start with and I got emotionally attached to it. I haven’t seemed to shave it off since.
“Will I shave it off if I get a gold? Maybe – but maybe it’ll be more incentive to keep it.”
