Palmer also produced some great courage, some brilliant volleying, and a mixture of flint-willed retrieving and early 
ball attacking which showed that the 32-year-old is desperate to remain at the highest level as long as he can.
Darwish meanwhile resisted everything – the disruptively domineering and cleverly constructed tactics, the tight lines with drops in the front corners, the nudges and the bumps and the accidental collisions, and the temptation to try for a quick end to hard, body-jerking and sometimes painful rallies.
Asked if he felt he were now joining the pantheon of Egyptian greats, Darwish wisely said that he “tried not to think about it.” He also, he said, concentrated on putting as much into it as he could, which he mostly always has, and to enjoy it, which sometimes he hasn't.
Consequently he is now often more relaxed on court than he was, and it may be this which is helping him to maintain his patience and persist with his discipline, and stick to the well-tried orthodoxies and percentages when the going is 
tough.
Palmer said: “I am not getting the training at the moment,” - referring to the fact that he is now based in Boston, Massachusetts, and is separated from his long-time coach Shaun Moxon - “so I have to come up with a better plan.”
Had he been able to stop Darwish attacking at 9-10 in the second game with a good length ball which set up a backhand drop half-nick winner, Palmer might have levelled at one game all and given the match a different course.
Instead that crucial game zig-zagged on for another eight points and nine rallies, until another fine, pressurising Darwish drive brought another Palmer dive, but only one which scooped the ball over the top of the front wall and into the distance.
With that his best chance sailed away too, though Palmer still managed to lead 6-3 in the third game, gained some recovery time with the pauses required to wipe his sweat off the court after his diving, and might have got an even longer respite had his knee been bleeding a little more than it actually was.
“It's been bleeding for three games and you guys haven't noticed,” he called up to the referees, when he was match point down at 8-10 and the latest bout of court-wiping was coming to an end.
“Can I go and get it fixed?” he asked three times, and there was enough of a delay in the referee's refusal to make Darwish wonder and the crowd smile. It was worth a try, and no-one can doubt that Palmer is one of the greatest triers the game has seen, as well as one of the best of the modern players. And he proved he is still feisty enough to trouble anyone.
Darwish's best moments, however may be in the short-term future. His success put him within one win of reaching the final and earning the biggest title of his career. But that next match is against Gregory Gaultier, the titleholder – and he too appears to be in the form of his life.