Ireland’s top two men’s players definitely caught the eye at the Simply The Brest tournament in France on Thursday: Sam Buckley eliminated the top-seeded Emyr Evans 3-1, and Conor Moran produced a battling performance in his hard-fought 2-3 loss to No.4 seed Brice Nicolas.
Ranked 122 in the world, Buckley began his campaign on Wednesday with an easy 3-0 (11-1, 11-6, 11-2) win over French wildcard Arthur Moineau in 24 minutes.
However, he lit up the $12,000 event in Brest the following day with his show-stopping 64-minute victory over Evans, the PSA No.69 player.
You’d never have known 53 places separated these two players on the rankings, so solid was the level of potent squash produced by Buckley, who took control by winning the opening two games 11-9 and 12-10.
He slipped up in the third, going down 5-11, but that was just a blip in an overall terrific performance as he closed out the victory 11-5 in the fourth.
Buckley’s reward as a 9/16 seed is a Friday evening quarter-final against Louai Hafez, the Swiss player ranked No.161 in the world. That match has a 5pm Irish time start and can be watched on SQUASHTV Live Streaming on YouTube.
Unfortunately, the No.148-ranked Moran won’t be on the Friday schedule after his 111-minute, five-game thriller against the PSA No.83, Nicolas.
Crowned Stourbridge Open champion last Sunday in England, the unseeded Moran got his French show up and running on Wednesday with a 3-1 (12-10, 7-11, 11-5, 11-4) win over 9/16 seed Bailey Malik, the English player ranked No.176 on the PSA list.
That secured his round of 16 fixture with Nicolas, and Moran made light of the 65 places that separated them on the PSA rankings.
The opening two games were lost 11-13 and 9-11 but the breaks then went his way in the next two games, with a pair of 11-9 wins taking the match to the fifth.
There, Moran was brilliantly competitive once more, only to be cruelly squeezed out 9-11.
