Welshman Emyr Evans Shines On Gold Event Debut At Silicon Valley Open

Welshman Emyr Evans scored a significant win in the opening round of the Silicon Valley Open presented by Oracle NetSuite in Redwood City on his PSA Squash Tour Gold event debut.

The Cardiff-born 29-year-old received a late call up to the event after a withdrawal in the men's event and grasped the opportunity with both hands, defeating training partner and close friend Patrick Rooney in four games.

With the pair knowing each other's games so well, easy points were hard to come by. The pair put on a quality technical display for the Squash Zone crowd. Evans moved ahead to 10-7 in game one playing accurate, measured squash. It was at this point, when Rooney tripped on Evans' foot and seemed to damage his ankle.

After losing the first game, Rooney continued to play, determined to find a weakness in the game of Evans, but the Gold event debutant stood strong as he hunted a first ever competitive win over the Englishman. After securing a 2/0 lead, Evans closed out the third game at the first time of asking 11-9 to move into the last 16.

"It's never easy to play a friend on tour and certainly not a close one like 'Pat'," said Evans.

"We were training together in Liverpool on Friday actually, when I got the call-up to play. I hoped it wouldn't be Patrick who I played but that's just the way these things go sometimes.

"He hurt his ankle in the first game and I could tell that he wasn't really the same after that. We've played enough times for me to know when he's at 100% and after the fall I felt he was thinking about that for the rest of the match. But I just had to focus on my game because I know how dangerous he can be in all areas. It's a bittersweet feeling I have right now, but overall I'm happy with how I played, and I'm pleased to be through."

Evans will now face No.3 seed and last year's runner-up Victor Crouin as the top seeds enter the fray for round two.

Elsewhere, in the women's event, England's Saran Nghiem scored the upset of the day as she took out Hong Kong's Ka Yi Lee in four games. The Harvard graduate stormed out the gates in game one, winning 11-3.

Despite being pegged back to 1/1, Nghiem continued to play her aggressive style of squash and showed a new maturity to her game that wasn't always there before. She won 11-3, 11-6 in the third and fourth games to set up a round two clash with Olivia Weaver, the USA's No.1's first match since June.

"I came in with a clear game plan and I'm glad I could execute that today," said Nghiem.

"I'm playing Olivia tomorrow. Probably the best time to play her is tomorrow but it's always great to get on court with the top girls so I'm just hoping I can play my best stuff."