Seeds Tumble While Greg Lobban & Sabrina Sobhy Prevail At Squash On Fire

While former world No.1 Mohamed Elshorbagy made a successful return to the international stage after a four-month absence, five seeded players crashed out of the Squash On Fire Open before quarter-finals day in the PSA World Tour Bronze event in Washington DC.

The Elshorbagy comeback suffered an unexpected start when England's world No.28 Patrick Rooney claimed a shock one-game lead against the top seed.

Elshorbagy would have been under no illusions as to the challenge ahead of him, having seen four seeded players crash out before his match.

Rooney's early momentum was soon extinguished, though, as The Beast roared back in the second game, wowing the crowd with the speed of his reactions and his immaculate positioning to level the tie with an 11-8 game win.

In an epic third game in which both players had opportunities to win, it was the Egyptian who was eventually able to break through, taking the game 15-13.

Although Rooney continued to fight hard in the fourth, Elshorbagy was able to keep him at arm's length and close out the tie in 57 minutes with an 11-8 win, to set up a quarter final match with No.6 seed Omar Mosaad.

After the match, Elshorbagy said: "I felt really burned out at the end of last season, from all the years. And I felt like I need to step away a little bit and tell myself to take a step away and give myself a break, to rethink what I need to do what I need to work on.

"I'm really happy to be back again, happy to be part of battles, battles like I had today, and I'm just really glad to be back in the tournament mode again.

"When I was down, I had to tell myself that I need to find a way, in situations like this, to win and I had to turn the match into a bit of a dogfight."

While Elshorbagy may have avoided an upset, other favourites were not so fortunate.

Sabrina Sobhy got the day's play off to a thrilling start in the women's event when she knocked out No.4 seed and American compatriot Olivia Fiechter in three games to proceed to a quarter final against Malaysia's Rachel Arnold.

In her first round match against Hong Kong's Tze Lok Ho, it was Sobhy's astonishing speed that proved the 25-year-old's most effective weapon. She combined this with improved accuracy to take the first two games 11-9 and 11-7 to leave herself in a commanding position and Fiechter stunned.

Fiechter initially appeared to have found her rhythm at the beginning of the third game and took the first two points. However, Sobhy quickly rallied to devastating effect, taking nine of the game's next ten points, before eventually securing an 11-7 win.

"It's a big win as Olivia has done so well in the past year or so, she's shot up in the rankings and has just been playing some outrageous squash with some really great victories. So just to have the opportunity to play against her, and to have a good performance against her as well, it really does mean a lot to me," Sobhy said after the match.

In the day's final men's match, Greg Lobban shocked No.3 seed Eain Yow Ng. This followed shock defeats to women's No.6 seed Nadine Shahin, No.7 seed Hollie Naughton, and No.8 seed Danielle Letourneau earlier in the day.

World No.40 Lobban took a battling first game 11-6, before stunning an increasingly frustrated Eain Yow 11-1 in the second.

Although the Malaysian regained his composure in the third game, he struggled to trouble the confident-looking Lobban, with the Scot able to control the majority of proceedings on his way to an 11-6 win.

After the match, Lobban said: "I'm really delighted as I've not had many performances like that in the last two years and I'd started to think: 'Was I ever going to have one of them again?' Everything just felt good tonight. I've been working really hard with Paul Price and getting into the zone like that. I felt in control, I felt really good. It's been a long time coming, but maybe it's made it sweeter that it took so long."

Elsewhere, women's world No.1 Nour El Sherbini saw off Egyptian compatriot Farida Mohamed in a stop-start encounter, Nele Gilis came from behind to beat sister Tinne, and hopes of a male home winner were ended by Todd Harrity's 3/0 defeat to Mosaad.