World No.1 Gregory Gaultier ended home hope Declan James’s run at the PSA World Championships in Manchester yesterday, overpowering the Englishman in straight games to progress to the quarter-finals while three-time World Champion Nick Mathew’s match against Qatar’s Abdulla Al Tamimi was suspended with the Englishman leading 2-0.
Matthew seemed on course of wrapping the match in straight games after having won the first two at 11-4, 11-8 and leading 8-6 in the third when play was temporarily stopped due to an issue with the court floor.
Earlier, Gaultier, the 2015 World Champion made little work of dispatching World No.28 James, claiming an 11-5, 11-3, 11-5 victory in 40 minutes.
Gaultier had not dropped a game heading into the match, having made little work of his round one and two competitors Todd Harrity and Tsz Fung Yip.
It was a different story for James though, who heroically fought back from two games down and match ball down against No.15 seed Cesar Salazar on Monday.
In another match, Kiwi World No.8 Paul Coll became the men’s player from New Zealand since Ross Norman in 1991 to reach the quarter-finals of the Worlds after he came through a gruelling 82-minute matchup with England’s Daryl Selby.
The pair were meeting for the third time on the PSA World Tour – with Coll winning their two previous encounters – but veteran Selby, appearing at his 11th World Championships – took the opener 11-8 after working Coll around the court well.
Thereafter, Coll took over to win the next three games 11-5, 11-7, 11-7 in 82 minutes to book place in the last eight stage of the tournament.
