Bryant & Nghiem Mark Home Manchester Open Breakthrough Wins

Unseeded English players Jonah Bryant and Saran Nghiem scored notable maiden PSA World Tour wins on the opening day of action in the Manchester Open, the PSA World Tour Silver event at the National Squash Centre in Manchester.

Bryant, the 18-year-old European Junior Champion who was a late entry to the event after Mostafa Asal's withdrawal, took the opportunity with both hands. Bryant admitted afterwards that he didn't play his best squash but managed to upset higher-ranked compatriot Nick Wall 11-6, 9-11, 11-6, 5-11, 11-5 to progress.

"I'm very happy, I didn't think I played my best squash but it kind of makes the win better because I managed to win not playing well, which is always a good sign, so yeah I was happy to get through." said Bryant, who now faces seventh-seeded Scot Greg Lobban for a place in the last eight.

Women's wildcard Saran Nghiem scored the win of the day as she overcame compatriot Alicia Mead to delight the home crowd. Nghiem, who hails from Manchester, has travelled back from the USA to play in the event as she is currently studying at Harvard University. After sealing the opening game 11-9, Nghiem was pegged back to one-all but showed her quality to regain the lead. She then impressively secured her round two place by winning the fourth game 11-0.

"I'm so happy to be through to the second round," said the 20-year-old.

"If I'm going to get my first World Tour win anywhere, where better than the club I started playing squash at. I'm playing Sarah-Jane Perry tomorrow, she's been at the top of the game for so long now and she's obviously an incredible player so I'm just going to try and compete on there tomorrow and show my best squash. Hopefully get another win."

Welshman Emyr Evans produced a strong performance to defeat Portugal's Rui Soares to earn his first World Tour event victory. Evans was playing in just his second event on the World Tour and needed just 42 minutes to defeat Soares in straight games.

Teenager Mohamad Zakaria also scored a first World Tour win on day one. The Egyptian came through a bruising five-game clash with England's Simon Herbert to progress to the second round.