Joelle Jettisons Champion Serme In US Open Upset

New Zealand's Joelle King showed impressive poise and composure to overcome world No.3 Camille Serme to end the Frenchwoman's title defence in the second round of the 2017 US Open Presented by Macquarie Investment Management.

The 29-year-old Kiwi, ranked 10 in the world, maintained the same giant-killing form which saw her scalp both Nicol David and Laura Massaro at the China Open in September to come from 2/1 down and prevail in an intense 66-minute encounter.

King, who rose to a career-high No.4 in the world rankings in 2014 before sustaining an Achilles injury which kept her out of the game for nine months, played with patience and poise to take the opening 11-5. But Serme replied in style to take the next two games and leave King staring down the barrel of defeat.

Undeterred, the No.11 seed maintained her composure to come through a tense fourth game and then recovered from squandering four match balls in the decider to seal the win 11-5, 4-11, 6-11, 11-9, 13-11.

"Camille is a classy player and has won some of the biggest tournaments - including this one - so to come away with a win against her is huge for me," said King.

"I was four in the world when I got injured and I guess a few people didn't think I would be able to get back to that standard after such a major injury and I guess for a period there I didn't think I was going to get back either.

"So the main thing for me is that I'm trying to play at that level again and hopefully I can continue the form that I have started with this season and see where it takes me.

"I'm happy with the way I'm playing and how I fought back from 2/1 down."

King will now face England's Alison Waters in the quarter-finals while Raneem El Welily and Nouran Gohar set up an all-Egyptian battle following wins over Tesni Evans of Wales and Joshna Chinappa of India, respectively.

In the Men's draw, Peru's Diego Elias kept up his impressive early season form to defeat world No.6 Marwan Elshorbagy.

The 20-year-old from Lima, who was agonisingly close to defeating World Champion Karim Abdel Gawad at last month's NetSuite Open, continued to demonstrate experience beyond his age as he utilised all four corners of the court to come through 11-5, 11-9, 11-9 in 46 minutes.

"It was hard," said Elias afterwards. "With Karim during NetSuite I was 2/0 up and I got a bit tired. I had a tough match the day before and I think it was more in my head.

"This time when I was 2/0 up I had that in my mind and wanted to make sure it didn't happen again. I'm feeling good this season."

Elias will now face Omar Mosaad for a place in the last four after the former world No.3 from Egypt - back at the court where he reached his first ever World Series event final in 2015 - downed Paul Coll, the in-form New Zealander who despatched top seed Karim Abdel Gawad in the opening round.

Earlier, Egyptian duo Ali Farag and Fares Dessouky also survived their second round encounters at Philadelphia's Drexel University.

As a result, Mosaad's straight games win saw four Egyptians through to both the men's and women's US Open quarter-finals for the first time ever!