Greg Marches Past Darwish In Hong Kong Open from PSA Media August 27, 2014
- French World No.28 Gregoire Marche stole the headlines during a
second day of giant-killing at the Cathay Pacific Sun Hung Kai
Financial Hong Kong Squash Open as he moved into the second round
following a 3-1 win over former World No.1 Karim Darwish.
Marche, who's career
high ranking is World No.27, pulled off arguably the biggest victory of
his career against the tournament number six seed in what was a dynamic
performance, displaying a dazzling array of shot making abilities
interspersed with some spectacular ball-retrieval.
It is a victory that
came as a delight to the the 24-year-old from Aix-En-Provence who has
been nursing a calf-injury throughout the summer, but he says the time
away from court may have played a key role in his victory.
"I am very happy with that win especially considering I had an injury in my calf just two weeks ago," said Marche.
"I have worked hard to
recover and I haven't played for about two months so to have this as my
first match of the season and win is great.
"At the end of last
season I had wins against Simon Rösner (World No.11) and LJ Anjema
(World No.16) so I knew I could win big matches but I think that is the
biggest win of my career and I'm really looking forward to the next
match now."
While Darwish fell at
the first hurdle there were no difficulties for the other seeds in
action on day two, as Borja Golan, Peter Barker and Mohamed Elshorbagy
eased through in comfortable fashion.
Golan, the Spanish
World No.7, didn't need to step on court to book his place in the
second round as Dutchman Laurens Jan Anjema was forced to withdraw
through injury while England's Barker, World No.8, and Egypt's
Elshorbagy, World No.3, looked untroubled as they got past their
compatriots Adrian Waller and Karim Abdel Gawad, respectively.
Indian World No.16
Saurav Ghosal, who will be gunning for glory in September's Asian
Games, impressed in his first round match-up with Henrik Mustonen of
Finland, taking just 28-minutes to seal a 3-0 win while Chris Simpson
dashed the hopes of local wildcard Tsz Fung Yip to end all home
representation in the event.
Cathay Pacific Sun Hung Kai Financial Hong Kong Squash Open 2014 - Round 1, Day 2 Results:
