Houston Lift Off For Champion Fiberglass Seeds

New Zealand favourite Martin Knight led all four seeds safely through to the quarter-finals of the Champion Fiberglass Open, the inaugural PSA World Tour Challenger 10 squash event at Downtown Club at the Met in Houston, Texas, USA.

The 29-year-old from Auckland despatched Cayman Islands qualifier Cameron Stafford 11-5, 11-7, 11-8 and will now face England's Declan James for a place in the semi-finals.

But second seed Andrew Wagih Shoukry had a much tougher ride. The 23-year-old Egyptian, ranked 59 in the world, was taken the full distance by Greg Lobban before overcoming the Scot ranked 27 places lower 8-11, 11-6, 9-11, 11-6, 11-8.

Mexican twins Arturo Salazar and Cesar Salazar both survived four-game encounters. Fourth seed Arturo beat Canadian qualifier Thomas Brinkman while Cesar, the No3 seed, had to fight back from a game down to see off Pakistani Muhammad Saqib Yousaf 5-11, 12-10, 11-6, 11-4.

Quarter-final line-up:
[1] Martin Knight (NZL) v Declan James (ENG)
[4] Arturo Salazar (MEX) v Clinton Leeuw (RSA)
[3] Cesar Salazar (MEX) v Farhan Zaman (PAK)
[2] Andrew Wagih Shoukry (EGY) v Raphael Kandra (GER)