“To beat James, in the form he has been in recently, on this stage is one of the most significant wins of my career and especially so as I struggled a bit at the end of last year,” said Simon Rösner. In the men’s draw hard-hitting German Simon Rösner (ri) pulled off one of the most impressive wins of his career to defeat 2010 champion James Willstrop (le) and book his place in the quarter-finals against the current World Champion Gregory Gaultier from France.
Rösner and Willstrop treated the capacity crowd to an 80-minute thriller which came to a crescendo during a 4th game that saw the German squander four match balls before saving 3 game balls to finally to secure the win 9-11, 11-4, 11-3, 16-14.
“I had a few tough defeats at the end of 2015 and was maybe losing a little bit of confidence so to be moving well on court again and winning a big match like this is very important for me. I’m really happy that I managed to close it out in the end and move into the quarter-finals here,” Simon Rösner said.
Further results: Men’s 2nd Round
[3] Gregory Gaultier (FRA) bt Fares Dessouki (EGY) 11-5, 11-9, 11-2 (62m)
[8] Marwan Elshorbagy (EGY) bt Ryan Cuskelly (AUS) 12-10, 12-14, 11-9, 12-10 (78m)
[2] Nick Matthew (ENG) bt Karim Abdel Gawad (EGY) 11-8, 11-9, 11-3 (48m)
Draw: Men’s Quarter-finals (head-to-heads)
[1] Mohamed Elshorbagy (EGY) v [5] Omar Mosaad (EGY) – (5:2)
[7] Mathieu Castagnet (FRA) v Borja Golan (ESP) – (3:5)
[3] Gregory Gaultier (FRA) v [6] Simon Rösner (GER) – (21:1)
[2] Nick Matthew (ENG) v [8] Marwan Elshorbagy (EGY) – (2:0)
