Farag Falls While Local Hero Mueller Advances In Zurich

Switzerland's world No.18 Nicolas Mueller progressed to the quarter finals of the Grasshopper Cup after getting the better of world No.1 Ali Farag to delight the home crowd at Halle 622 in the Swiss city of Zurich.

Farag retired injured from the US Open final after just a couple of points on Saturday, and four days later, he took to the court against home favourite Mueller in the second round of the PSA World Tour Gold level tournament.

However, the Egyptian was clearly still struggling from the same knee problem, and the Swiss No.1 was able to delight the home crowd to take advantage and secure a straight-games win to advance to the quarter finals, where he will now face Egypt's Marwan Elshorbagy.

"Finally, a win in the second round! It's obviously very sad to see Ali not at his best today, I think he's still struggling with his knee. Even on one and a half legs he's still a pretty good player, he's not world No.1 for nothing," Mueller said.

"I played Ramy [Ashour] when he was also on one leg here, and I didn't want to end up losing this one, so I made sure I was able to stay on top and win it. Every time I hit a cross court I thought that he wouldn't get it. I feel very sorry for him, but on the other hand I'm very happy to be playing here on Friday."

Looking ahead to his next round, Mueller added: "He's been playing well recently. He beat me last time, but the two times before I won. We're in for a treat on Friday night, so I need everyone to come back and support us. Dimitri [Steinmann] also needs the crowd tomorrow so we can have two Swiss players in the quarters, that's the main goal."

Peru's world No.3 Diego Elias and Welshman Joel Makin also made it through from the men's draw, winning their respective matches against Frenchman Baptiste Masotti and Malaysian No.1 Eain Yow Ng in a deciding third game. The pair will meet in Friday's semi-finals.

In the opening women's match of the day, USA's world No.11 Olivia Fiechter had to fight back from behind to overcome Belgian No.1 Tinne Gilis. The USA No.2 lost a tight first game as Gilis kept in front of her for the majority of the match, picking off several loose balls with accurate drops on both the forehand and backhand sides.

Fiechter didn't panic after losing the opening salvo however, and found a better length in the second game to pin the Belgian deep in the back corners and move back in front to showcase her own attacking talents.

Fiechter closed out the game 11-2 to take the match 2/1, and will now face six-time World Champion Nour El Sherbini in the last eight.

"By the end, I really felt like I found my game. Tinne came out firing as you have to in the best-of-three format, she really took it to me so I had to step up and be more aggressive and I'm really pleased to get past a difficult player like Tinne," Fiechter admitted.

"It's so different [the best-of-three format], in ways, it feels like a different game. My coaches love it because they all about coming out with intensity from the very first point so they're loving that I'm playing an event like this as its forcing me to come out strong and be in the right mental state that I want to be whether it's best of three or five and I think it produces a more fast-paced, aggressive game of squash so it's fun."

The other women's quarter final will see the Egyptian duo of world No.6 Nour El Tayeb and world No.7 Rowan Elaraby go head-to-head. They defeated Frenchwoman Melissa Alves and Wales' Emily Whitlock in their respective second round matches.