World No.34 Iker Pajares produced a near-faultless display to surge into the quarter-finals of the New Zealand Squash Open, stunning World No.11 Jonah Bryant in four games at Isaac Theatre Royal in Christchurch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a day of upsets in which three unseeded players progressed to the last eight stage of the Silver-level event, it was Spanish National Champion Pajares who delivered the pick of the performances by overturning the No.4 seed by a 10-12, 11-6, 12-10, 11-4 scoreline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a brutal 31-minute first game went the way of Bryant in a tie-break, Pajares responded in terrific fashion, hitting with immaculate accuracy and forcing Bryant into continuously tough movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 29-year-old saved two game balls in a high-quality third game win, before moving through a largely one-sided fourth game to seal the victory after 85 minutes of play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the match, Pajares said: “I’ve been struggling with some performances with my body lately – I don’t know what happened today, I just felt so good. I felt very strong, I wasn’t getting tired, and I was very confident in myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I had crazy matches last year with Jonah and I always lost them in five. After the 2-1 lead today, I just knew I had to push very hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I have a massive opportunity against my friend Matias [Knudsen] tomorrow. We’re staying together and we said this morning, ‘let’s meet tomorrow [in the quarter-finals]'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere in the men’s draw, two-time defending champion Paul Coll got his hat-trick hopes underway in somewhat nervy style, eventually getting the better of the powerful Moustafa Elsirty in four games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
World No.2 Coll by no means had it his own way throughout the 65-minute encounter, notably battling back from 8-6 down in the fourth game when a decider looked to be on the cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the women’s draw, World No.45 Torrie Malik claimed one of the biggest wins of her career after twice coming from behind to defeat World No.12 Salma Hany in five games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Awaiting Malik in the quarter-finals is another unseeded player, Nour Heikal, who overcame No.8 seed Tomato Ho in four games. The pair will both go into tomorrow’s match eying a spot in a maiden Silver-level semi-final on the PSA Squash Tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other two winners in the women’s draw were Nele Gilis and Aifa Azman, who claimed comfortable three-game wins over Haya Ali and Marie Stephan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matias Knudsen and Ng Eain Yow rounded out the men’s quarter-final line-up after coming through tough tests with Auguste Dussourd and Melvil Scianimanico, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Results <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Men’s Round Two: <\/strong>[1] Paul Coll (NZL) bt Moustafa Elsirty (EGY) 3-1: 11-4, 8-11, 11-7, 11-9 (65m); [5] Ng Eain Yow (MAS) bt Melvil Scianimanico (FRA) 3-0: 11-8, 11-9, 11-8 (51m); Matias Knudsen (COL) bt [8] Auguste Dussourd (FRA) 3-1: 6-11, 11-9, 11-9, 12-10 (70m); Iker Pajares (ESP) bt [4] Jonah Bryant (ENG) 3-1: 10-12, 11-6, 12-10, 11-4 (85m)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women’s Round Two: <\/strong>[6] Aifa Azman (MAS) bt Marie Stephan (FRA) 3-0: 12-10, 11-6, 11-6 (28m); [3] Nele Gilis (BEL) bt Haya Ali (EGY) 3-0: 11-5, 11-3, 11-3 (25m); Nour Heikal (EGY) bt [7] Tomato Ho (HKG) 3-1: 6-11, 11-3, 11-6, 11-6 (43m); Torrie Malik (ENG) bt [2] Salma Hany (EGY) 3-2: 7-11, 11-9, 7-11, 13-11, 11-6 (63m)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" World No.34 Iker Pajares produced a near-faultless display to surge into the quarter-finals of the New Zealand Squash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-10174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-squash"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Squash-Iker-Pajares-scaled.jpg",2560,2127,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Squash-Iker-Pajares-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Squash-Iker-Pajares-300x249.jpg",300,249,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Squash-Iker-Pajares-768x638.jpg",640,532,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Squash-Iker-Pajares-1024x851.jpg",640,532,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Squash-Iker-Pajares-1536x1276.jpg",1536,1276,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Squash-Iker-Pajares-2048x1702.jpg",2048,1702,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Squash-Iker-Pajares-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Squash-Iker-Pajares-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Squash-Iker-Pajares-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10176,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10174\/revisions\/10176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}