Singh & Pajares Celebrate Maiden Gold Quarters At Grasshopper Cup

Abhay Singh and Iker Pajares are through to the quarter finals of a Gold-level event for the first time in their careers after ousting No.7 seed Aly Abou Eleinen and No.6 seed Youssef Soliman, respectively, at the Grasshopper Cup in Zurich.

Singh, competing in the Grasshopper Cup for the first time, overcame Eleinen 2/0 to make his Gold event breakthrough.

The world No.24 trailed 8-5 in the opener before pegging the score back to 8-8 and saved both of Eleinen's game balls before converting in the tiebreak.

Singh, who defeated Eleinen 3/2 at the El Gouna International earlier this month, had to withstand an Eleinen comeback in the second when the Egyptian was 7-3 down before levelling, but the strength of Singh's backhand helped him win 12-10, 11-9.

"What a match!" said the Indian No.1 afterwards.

"In the deep end of both games I had to show some real fight to come back with the deficit in the first. I think that was deja vu with a similar situation

"I had it with him in El Gouna. Credit to Jimbo [James Willstrop] - he put together a good plan as I was going to be in a deficit in the first and that paid off."

Pajares, who's reached the last eight of Platinum events previously, produced another impressive performance to down Soliman in straight games having taken out Swiss No.1 Dimitri Steinmann in round one.

Home hopes were dashed after 14-time Swiss national champion Nicolas Mueller was defeated by Joel Makin.

Mueller, the last Swiss player remaining following six exits from the host nation in round one, lost 2/0 to the world No.5.

Elsewhere, former World Champion Karim Gawad downed Auguste Dussourd 2/0.

In the women's draw, world No.13 Jasmine Hutton overturned a 1/0 deficit to beat Melissa Alves in three.

The English No.2 came into Zurich off the back of winning the biggest title of her career at the Sportwerk Hamburg Open last week, but squandered five game balls in the first game as Alves capitalised to draw first blood.

Hutton, however, rediscovered some of the excellent squash she played last week in Hamburg to complete the comeback with a 10-12, 11-7, 11-9 success.

"I was feeling quite flat today and I didn't really show up," said Hutton afterwards.

"I didn't really have that fire in my belly that I usually have, but I'm just really pleased I stuck in and dug deep and came through in three."

The tournament's No.2 seed Satomi Watanabe came through a tough encounter with Rowan Elaraby 2/0, Fayrouz Aboelkheir downed fellow Egyptian Nour Heikal by the same scoreline and England's Gina Kennedy defeated her compatriot Grace Gear.