Ramy Ashour lost his world title and saw his unbeaten 53-match sequence halted when a calf injury caused him to retire at 1-1 against Nick Matthew in the semi-finals of the World Championship.
The sport's most brilliant player and most charismatic personality was close to tears at the shattering of his dream of repeating his world title triumph in Manchester five years ago.
Instead it became the third time in four world championships that the number one from Egypt has been forced to quit in the middle of the tournament, raising questions as to what the 26-year-old squash genius can do to prolong his career.
He outplayed the former world champion from England with patches of brilliant winners in the first game, but was nowhere near the same player in the second, making no attempt to play the last two rallies out.
After two painfully half-hearted rallies at the start of the third game, Ashour shook hands and received some consoling words with Matthew who made it to his third final in four years with the score at 6-11, 11-2, 2-0 in his favour.
Afterwards Ashour confirmed that he suffered the injury during his hard third round match with Cameron Pilley of Australia, which went to four games and lasted more than an hour.
"I've been having a lot of physio, and ice and acupuncture - and taking pills to relax," he said within minutes of the finish.
"It's a very big disappointment to me. I have to go back and see what's wrong with my legs.
"People in the hospital told me I have fatigue in my hamstrings and .. it's a bit uncertain."
Fourth seed Matthew was the last person to have beaten Ashour, 18 months ago at the British Open in London.
"I'm not sure how to be feeling. You work your whole year - and for that," he said.
"It's not how you want to get to the final."
Matthew, twice a former winner of the world title, will play second seed Gregory Gaultier in the final.
The Frenchman, who has three times been runner-up, beat Mohamed el Shorbagy, the sixth seed, 6-11 11-3 11-8 12-10.
The Egyptian was runner-up last time in Doha.
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