Lake & Mekhalfi Win Five-Game Thrillers To Reach Cleveland L16

Nathan Lake and Toufik Mekhalfi staved off late surges from their respective opponents on the opening day of Squash in the Land presented by Porsche Beachwood to progress to round two of the Silver-level event in Cleveland.

Lake fended off a comeback from Matthew Lai to win 3/2, while Mekhalfi also triumphed by the same scoreline against Rui Soares to book a place in the second round.

World No.49 Lake, who is ranked 39 places higher than Lai in the PSA Rankings, was 2/1 up before his Hong Kong opponent battled back to level the match by clinching the fourth 11-9. However, the 33-year-old Englishman kept his composure in the deciding game to close out a 11-7, 10-12, 11-6, 9-11, 11-5 victory at Cleveland Skating Club.

Mekhalfi, who claimed the biggest win of his career so far last week in the first round of the Karachi Open Gold-level event, was 2/1 up before Soares forced a deciding fifth game. Mekhalfi eased to an 8-2 lead - but Soares powered back and was within three points of levelling and sending the decider into a tiebreak at 7-10 down. However Mekhalfi was able to keep Soares at bay to prevail 11-6, 9-11, 11-1, 7-11, 11-7.

"This is technically a first-ever Silver first round win - today it was tough. It was difficult conditions and I'm really happy with that," Mekhalfi said.

"It was a cheeky match because it was not my best match because the conditions were not easy. If you are not hitting the ball well, the ball was going into the middle of the court and it was difficult to find my length. It got better at points but not during all the match."

In the women's draw, Spaniard Marta Dominguez claimed an impressive victory over Nour Heikal at Urban Squash Cleveland to progress to the second round.

The world No.59 beat the Egyptian world No.44 11-6, 4-11, 11-6, 11-8 to tee up a second round clash with the tournament's No.3 seed Jasmine Hutton.

Home favourites Audrey Berling and Dixon B Hill had their campaigns in Cleveland cut short at the hands of Tomato Ho and Grace Gear, respectively.