MCO 2025, Day One: Tsukue, ElSherbini Claim Five-Game Wins

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan – World No.53 Ryunosuke Tsukue and World No.28 Mohamed ElSherbini claimed entertaining five-game wins on the opening day of the DR21 Motor City Open 2025, defeating Timothy Brownell and Rui Soares, respectively, as the 25th edition of the PSA Squash Tour Silver-level event got underway in Detroit.

Japanese No.1 Tsukue, placed 23 spots behind Brownell in the world rankings, delivered a performance full of exquisite shotmaking to defeat the American by an 11-8, 4-11, 11-13, 11-4, 11-7 scoreline in front of a home crowd inside the Birmingham Athletic Club.

Despite losing out in a nip-and-tuck third-game tie-break, Tsukue bounced back impressively to contain the attacking threats of Brownell and eventually set up a second-round clash with No.6 seed Dimitri Steinmann.

Elsewhere, Egypt’s Mohamed ElSherbini survived a major scare against Portugal’s Soares, fighting back from 8-4 down in the fifth game to record a thrilling 13-11 victory in the final match of the day.

In a match that saw a trio of tense tie-breaks, Egypt’s ElSherbini needed all of his battling abilities to twice come from behind against the World No.58 and book himself a second-round tie with No.8 seed Greg Lobban.

Elsewhere, English trio Jonah Bryant, Simon Herbert and Nathan Lake all secured victories to progress to the second round, defeating Alex Lau, Patrick Rooney and Cesar Salazar, respectively.

Teenage star Bryant, who last month reached the quarter-finals of the Silver-level Squash in the Land, continued his rich vein of form with a superb straight-games win over Hong Kong’s Lau. The 19-year-old dropped just 12 points and needed 23 minutes to set up a tie with World No.4 and last year’s runner-up Paul Coll.

Herbert, meanwhile, came through an all-England battle with Patrick Rooney in four games to book his spot in the second round. World No.52 Herbert, who had never faced his compatriot on the PSA Tour, came away with an 11-7, 11-8, 4-11, 11-4 win to set up a tie with Malaysian No.1 Eain Yow Ng.

Other winners on day one of the DR21 Motor City Open included France’s Baptiste Masotti, Egypt’s Yahya Elnawasany and Colombia’s Juan Camilo Vargas, who all came through their respective bouts in straight games.

Round Two of the DR21 Motor City Open gets underway tomorrow at 17:00 (GMT-5) on Wednesday, 5th February. Watch the action unfold live on SQUASHTV.

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Results:

Juan Camilo Vargas (COL) bt David Baillargeon (CAN) 3-0: 11-7, 11-9, 11-7 (36m)

Nathan Lake (ENG) bt Cesar Salazar (MEX) 3-0: 11-5, 11-9, 11-8 (38m)

Baptiste Masotti (FRA) bt Yannick Wilhelmi (SUI) 3-0: 11-2, 11-2, 11-6 (31m)

Simon Herbert (ENG) bt Patrick Rooney (ENG) 3-1: 11-7, 11-8 4-11, 11-4 (40m)

Yahya Elnawasany (EGY) bt Henry Leung (HKG) 3-0: 11-5, 12-10, 11-5 (31m)

Mohamed ElSherbini (EGY) bt Rui Soares (POR) 3-2: 10-12, 11-7, 10-12, 11-4, 13-11 (60m)

Ryunosuke Tsukue (JPN) bt Timothy Brownell (USA) 3-2: 11-8, 4-11, 11-13, 11-4, 11-7 (48m)

Jonah Bryant (ENG) bt Alex Lau (HKG) 3-0: 11-4, 11-5, 11-3 (23m)

Draw: Round Two