Gough Outlasts Parke In Windy City Marathon

Britons Alex Gough and Simon Parke battled for 70 minutes on the second day of first round action in the SSA Global Windy City Open Championship in Chicago before Welshman Gough prevailed in four games to move into the last sixteen of the richest PSA Tour event in North America.

The pair, until recently both based in Nottingham, have played each countless times over the past two decades - though, remarkably, not since October 2002 on the PSA Tour. English qualifier Parke, a former world No3 from Leeds in Yorkshire, took the opening game - but 15th seed Gough, two years older than his opponent at 35, came back to win 6-11 11-9 11-8 11-3.

England's Nick Matthew, also a Yorkshireman, secured his third successive win over Stewart Boswell since the Australian mounted his successful comeback last year. The eighth seed from Sheffield won 11-6 9-11 11-1 11-7 in 60 minutes and will now take on Finland's Olli Tuominen in the next round.

Finn Tuominen dashed Dan Jenson's hopes, beating the Australian qualifier 11-8 11-7 8-11 11-10.

Scotland's John White needed only 29 minutes to successfully begin the defence of his title in Chicago. The seventh seed defeated English qualifier Ben Garner 11-9 11-6 11-7 and will now face Egypt's unseeded Mohammed Abbas for a place in the quarter-finals.

1st round:
[13] Mohd Azlan Iskandar (MAS) bt [Q] Gavin Jones (WAL) 9-11, 11-7, 11-6, 7-11, 11-4 (65m)
[3] Anthony Ricketts (AUS) bt Wael El Hindi (EGY) 6-11, 11-10, 11-8, 11-5 (66m)
[11] Graham Ryding (CAN) bt Joseph Kneipp (AUS) 11-8, 11-4, 11-7 (31m)
[7] John White (SCO) bt [Q] Ben Garner (ENG) 11-9, 11-6, 11-7 (29m)
[15] Alex Gough (WAL) bt [Q] Simon Parke (ENG) 6-11, 11-9, 11-8, 11-3 (70m)
[12] Olli Tuominen (FIN) bt [Q] Dan Jenson (AUS) 11-8, 11-7, 8-11, 11-10 (2-0) (57m)
[8] Nick Matthew (ENG) bt Stewart Boswell (AUS) 11-6, 9-11, 11-1, 11-7 (60m)
[10] Karim Darwish (EGY) bt [Q] Davide Bianchetti (ITA) 11-4, 11-1, 11-3 (23m)