Malik & Khafagy Stun Seeds To Reach Silicon Valley Open Quarters

Unseeded duo Curtis Malik and Malak Khafagy gatecrashed the quarter-finals of the Silicon Valley Open 2025 presented by Oracle NetSuite after upsetting world No.8 Youssef Soliman and world No.15 Nada Abbas on a dramatic second day of action at Squash Zone in Redwood City, USA.

World No.28 Malik claimed the first top-ten win of his career when he came from a game behind to upset last year's runner-up Soliman, the No.3 seed, by a 9-11, 11-7, 11-2, 12-10 scoreline.

The Englishman, who lost out to No.3 seed Soliman in four games at the El Gouna International earlier this year, reversed that scoreline with some accurate but equally aggressive squash to reach his maiden Gold-level quarter-final on the PSA Squash Tour.

"I'm honestly over the moon," Malik said after the match. "I've been working so hard, day in day out, for such a long time and I've been wanting to play these top 10 guys and actually beat them for a while now.

"It gives me good confidence knowing that I can actually pull through and win because you tell yourself that you can do it but actually doing it is another thing. So hopefully this is a catalyst to move forward with."

Khafagy, meanwhile, delivered one of the comebacks of the season as she fought back from two games down, and 9-6 down in the third, to clinch a thrilling win over No.6 seed Abbas.

Despite nursing a ligament strain in her left finger which she sustained in her first round match with Riva Bhagwati, and sitting just two points away from a straight games defeat, the world No.25 dug deep to eventually prevail by an 8-11, 9-11, 11-9, 12-10, 13-11 scoreline.

"I'm very happy with my performance today," Khafagy said after the match. "I feel in the first two games, I was too passive. I was thinking of my injured hand too much. I was so out of balance.

"And then at some point in the third game, I was like, okay, you lost last week 3/0, and I needed to give it my all in this game. That's what I did and it worked.

"I'm very proud of the fighting spirit that I have right now."

The other unseeded player to cause a ranking upset was Egypt's Kareem El Torkey, who overcame No.7 seed Miguel Rodriguez by an 11-7, 11-7, 10-12, 11-9 scoreline to join Khafagy in reaching a first-ever Gold-level quarter-final.

Elsewhere, top seeds Olivia Weaver and Mostafa Asal made seamless starts to their title quests at the Silicon Valley Open after they eased into the last eight following three-game victories over Sabrina Sobhy and Yannick Wilhelmi, respectively.

British No.1 Georgina Kennedy, however, was forced to go the distance in her match with Malaysia's Rachel Arnold, with the No.4 seed battling back from 4-0 down in the deciding game to edge out a nervy 6-11, 11-4, 9-11, 11-8, 11-9 win.

On the summer addition of Rodney Martin to her coaching set-up, the world No.10 said: "Olivia Weaver is one of my good friends and she kind of encouraged me to like come and train with them both.

"I've just been really enjoying it. He's obviously got so much to teach me. I'm not under any illusion that it's going to be easy. I'm not going to suddenly start hitting the ball as well as Rod!

"I'm just really excited about what he's teaching me. He's obviously so good."