World No.258 Marek Panacek\u00a0produced the biggest shock of day one of the Hamburg Open squash championships by ousting World No.52 Adrian Waller to reach the second round.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tournament wildcard Panacek, who’s based at Sportwerk, made home court advantage count against the Englishman to come out on top 13-11, 6-11, 11-7, 6-11, 11-2 in 57 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Panacek, who’s ranked over 200 places lower than Waller, was 2-1 up before being pegged back by the former World No.17 to force a fifth game. But a number of excellent winners from the back of the court, coupled with some errors from Waller’s racket, helped Panacek get over the line and seal his place in round two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m enjoying every moment of it,” he said afterwards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s been some time since I played this quality of squash in my opinion, I’m very happy with it and I’m looking forward to playing in the second round tomorrow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I was enjoying the moment on court and I played how I wanted. I was focusing on being good to the back because Adrian [Waller] is very tall and he reaches every ball in the middle. That was the tactic and I’m happy I made it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It means a lot [beating someone higher in the rankings] and for my family as well. It’s been quite hard the last few years with my squash and this is something we were hoping for, so I’m really happy.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The wildcard in the women’s side of the draw, Maya Weisher also claimed a huge upset as the World No.153 downed World No.65 Hayley Ward 11-8, 6-11, 7-11, 11-9, 11-4.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 19-year-old, who had never gone beyond the first round on home soil in two previous attempts, made it third time lucky against the South African to tee up a second round clash with No.4 seed Melissa Alves tomorrow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I had nothing to lose and I came into this tournament to try and play my best squash, make my coach proud, make everyone proud and it was a great atmosphere,” she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I went to the front too early and I needed to stay more solid into the back and play more normal drives.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere, English pair Sam Todd and Patrick Rooney came through stern tests against Yassin Elshafei and David Bernet, respectively, with both winning 8-11, 12-10, 7-11, 11-7, 11-4.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the women’s draw, Millie Tomlinson ended hopes for Katerina Tycova in a five-game thriller, while Marie Stephan recovered from 2-1 down to overcome Keira Marshall 6-11, 11-6, 11-8, 7-11, 11-4.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ROUND ONE RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Men’s: <\/strong>Mazen Hesham (EGY) bt. Rory Stewart (SCO) 3-1: 1-11, 12-10, 11-5, 11-9 (36m); Balazs Farkas\u00a0(HUN) bt. Yannik Omlor (GER) 3-1: 11-7, 7-11, 11-9, 12-10 (54m); Sam Todd (ENG) bt. Yassin Elshafei (EGY) 3-2: 11-5, 11-9, 14-16, 8-11, 11-8 (65m); Ryunosuke Tsukue\u00a0(JPN) bt. Velavan Senthilkumar (IND) 3-0: 11-4, 11-9, 14-12 (34m); Emyr Evans (WAL) bt. Toufik Mekhalfi (FRA) 3-1: 11-9, 11-9, 10-12, 11-5 (55m); Veer Chotrani (IND) bt. Ivan Perez (ESP)3-0: 11-8, 11-9, 11-8 (41m); Marek Panacek (CZE) bt. Adrian Waller (ENG) 3-2: 13-11, 6-11, 11-7, 6-11, 11-2 (57m); Patrick Rooney (ENG) bt. David Bernet (SUI) 3-2: 11-7, 11-5, 9-11, 7-11, 11-3 (63m)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women’s: <\/strong>Marie Stephan (FRA) bt. Kiera Marshall (ENG) 3-2: 8-11, 12-10, 7-11, 11-7, 11-4 (43m); Joshna Chinappa (IND) bt. Saskia Beinhard (GER) 3-0: 11-4, 11-5, 11-4 (21m); Lauren Baltayan (FRA) bt. Yasshmita Jadishkumar (MAS) 3-1: 6-11, 11-3, 11-9, 11-9 (40m); Jessica van der Walt (AUS) bt. Emilia Soini (FIN) 3-0: 11-9, 11-8, 11-3 (26m); Maya Weishar (GER) bt. Hayley Ward (RSA) 3-2: 11-8, 6-11, 7-11, 11-9, 11-4 (44m); Millie Tomlinson (ENG) bt. Katerina Tycova (GER) 3-2: 6-11, 11-6, 11-8, 7-11, 11-4 (58m); Marta Dominguez (ESP) bt. Enora Villard (FRA) 3-0: 11-7, 11-5, 11-2 (23m); Hannah Craig (IRL) bt. Tanvi Khanna (IND) 3-0: 11-5, 11-7, 13-11 (37m)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" World No.258 Marek Panacek\u00a0produced the biggest shock of day one of the Hamburg Open squash championships by ousting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11719,"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":[7],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-11718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-squash"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Marek-Panacek-1.jpg",1990,1327,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Marek-Panacek-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Marek-Panacek-1-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Marek-Panacek-1-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Marek-Panacek-1-1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Marek-Panacek-1-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Marek-Panacek-1.jpg",1990,1327,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Marek-Panacek-1-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Marek-Panacek-1-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Marek-Panacek-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11718","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=11718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11720,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11718\/revisions\/11720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}