CAIRO: Alison Waters’ achievement in dethroning world champion Laura Massaro in four games in the quarter-finals in Cairo has highlighted one of the most remarkable career comebacks in the sport.

It was hard to believe during the fifth-seeded Waters’ 12-14, 11-2, 11-7, 11-9 victory over her English compatriot that not long ago she was away from the tour for fully 18 months with an injury — and with the nightmarish prospect of never competing professionally again.

The mixture of courage and skill with which the 30-year-old Londoner upset the World Championship odds on Thursday was not unlike the mindset she created to recover from her long-lasting Achilles and ankle injuries during 2011 and 2012.

Waters travelled to Sweden for an operation, performed painstaking exercises every day for months on end, and then had to haul her world ranking back from a place outside the top 40.

Not long after she did make it back, Waters’ potential as an attacking player was highlighted by her first win over Nicol David, the record-breaking world number one from Malaysia. It helped the Londoner surge up the top ten again.

The eye-catching victory earned her a semi-final with the darling of the Cairo crowds, Raneem el Weleily, the charismatic and gifted Egyptian number one, against whom Waters nevertheless has a winning head-to-head record.

Results:

Quarter-finals: Nicol David (MAS x1) bt Camille Serme (FRA x6) 11-9, 11-7, 13-11; Omneya Abdel Kawy (EGY x10) bt Low Wee Wern (MAS x7) 12-10, 11-3, 11-4; Raneem El Weleily (EGY x3) bt Nour El Tayeb (EGY x8) 11-7, 11-9, 11-13, 11-5; Alison Waters (ENG x5) bt Laura Massaro (ENG x2) 12-14, 11-2, 11-7, 11-9.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2014