SITE OFFICIEL

Quarts de finale

[7] Greg Lobban (SCO) 3-1 Grégoire Marche  11-4, 13-11, 14-16, 11-5 (87m)

Second Tour (16e)

[9/16] Grégoire Marche 3-2 [1] Marwan Elshorbagy (Eng)  11-13, 10-12, 11-9, 11-5, 11-2 (60m)
[5] Fares Dessouky (Egy) 3-0 [9/16] Lucas Serme  11-7, 11-7, 11-9 (36m)

Day two of the Manchester Open 2024 saw the top seeds enter the fray with quarter-final spots up for grabs in the PSA World Tour Silver event. France’s Gregoire Marche downed top seed Marwan Elshorbagy to end a 10-match losing streak against the Englishman.

Marche entered the match without a win against the Englishman in 10 attempts and after losing the two opening games, looked to be again on the receiving end of an Elshorbagy win.

The Frenchman battled back to score the third game and breathe more life into the contest. The Elshorbagy frustration was increasing point by point, which was working to Marche’s advantage. 11-5, 11-2 were the scores in the fourth and fifth games as Marche completed the comeback to earn a spot in a fifth World Tour quarter final this season.

“It’s a great win for me. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever beaten him on the tour so it’s nice to finally break that record,” said Marche after his win.

“I lost the first two games and I had some game balls I think but as I said, I knew something was going for me. I felt I was playing much better than yesterday, I just needed to clinch one thing, just one point maybe at the end of the third and that gave me a bit of confidence. I just had to stay calm and focused because the end of the third game was a bit tricky. Then, I started well in the fourth and the fifth as well, so yeah it’s a really good win for me.

“I had a few issues during this season. I had surgery in my eyes in January, so I had to stay away from the court for two months. It was a good time off, maybe that’s why I feel a bit more fresh compared to the others. I just wanted to play well at the end of the season, there’s this tournament and then the British Open next week.”

Marche will now play Scotland’s Greg Lobban in the last eight, who ended the run of 18-year-old Englishman Jonah Bryant. All of the other men’s seeds successfully advanced through to the next round including close wins for Iker Pajares and Youssef Ibrahim, who both needed five games to move past European duo Yannick Wilhelmi and Declan James.

Premier Tour

Gregoire Marche 3-2 Martin Svec (Cze)  11-2, 9-11, 11-9, 6-11, 11-3 (60m)
Yannick Wilhelmi (Sui) 3-1 Edwin Clain   7-11, 11-5, 11-4, 11-7 (45m)
Lucas Serme 3-2 Ben Smith (Eng) 9-11, 9-11, 11-1, 11-8, 11-6 (63m)