Malak Khafagy upset No.3 seed Salma Hany on quarter-finals day at the Open Squash Classic, a day which also featured a five-game win for Leonel Cardenas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All eight seeds had progressed through round two in the women\u2019s draw 24 hours earlier, and it was Alexandrian duo Khafagy and Hany who got the action underway on day three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pair had only met once before on the PSA Tour, back at the 2022-2023 PSA World Championships, when Hany won 3-0, and 10 minutes into this encounter it appeared as though we might be in for a repeat of that result, as the 29-year-old eased to an 11-4 success in game one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Khafagy, though, made the perfect start to game four, finding her range at the front of the court and moving her opponent around well, racing out to an 8-1 lead, which she converted into an 11-4 success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The roles were reversed in the opening rallies of game three, with a handful of Khafagy errors and some clean hitting from Hany helping the No.3 seed into an 8-4 lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Khafagy \u2013 who spoke after the match about feeling relaxed and with little to lose against the higher-ranked player \u2013 continued to play her free-flowing game and was soon level at 9-9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A game ball at 10-9 up came and went but the second at 11-10 didn\u2019t, with a cross-court backhand beyond Hany\u2019s reach clinching the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once again, it was Hany who established an early lead in the fourth, but just as she had in the third, Khafagy clawed her way back level, bringing up a match ball with a crisp backhand winner down the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it would be another backhand from the Khafagy racket \u2013 this time a more delicate drop \u2013 that ended the contest, with Hany appealing for a let to no avail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere in the women\u2019s draw, there were 3-0 wins for the top two seeds, Nada Abbas and Fayrouz Aboelkheir, while defending champion Farida Mohamed needed four games to battle past Georgia Adderley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Melvil Scianimanico continued his impressive week in the men\u2019s draw, beating Nick Wall 3-0 to reach his first ever Bronze event semi-final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The young Frenchman had already knocked out Kareem El Torkey in round one and then seventh seed Mohamed ElSherbini in round two, but both of those wins had come on the tradition court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The move to the glass \u2013 where all eight quarter-finals were played \u2013 did little to halt his momentum though, as he put in a dominant display, particularly in games one and three, to close out a straight-games win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scianimanico\u2019s reward is a semi-final showdown with fourth seed Leonel Cardenas, who came out on top of a five-game tussle with rising star Noor Zaman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The young Pakistani player upset fifth seed Gregoire Marche in round two and presented a tricky test for the Mexican, particularly with his quick hands and silky skills towards the front of the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those skills were on full display in game one as Zaman took it 11-5, but Cardenas began to find his feet and his length, limiting the opportunities for Zaman to go short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The result of that was the next two games going in Cardenas\u2019 favour, but Zaman was not ready to throw in the towel, digging deep to send the match to a decider with an 11-8 success in the fourth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 21-year-old came into this event having gone deep into tournaments in each of the past two weeks, winning the NASH Cup and then reaching the Charlottesville semi-finals, and it was perhaps that workload that ultimately took it\u2019s toll here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In contrast, Cardenas pushed the pace of play, racing to the service box between rallies and taking control of the game on his way to a 7-3 lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still Zaman wouldn\u2019t go away \u2013 closing the gap back to 9-7 \u2013 but he would ultimately fall short, with Cardenas letting out a huge roar of \u2018Vamos\u2019 after closing out the win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second men\u2019s semi-final will see Eain Yow Ng take on Victor Crouin, after their respective 3-0 wins over Miguel Rodriguez and Adrian Waller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Results<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Men\u2019s Quarter-Finals<\/strong> Women\u2019s Quarter-Finals<\/strong>: [7] Malak Khafagy (EGY) bt. [3] Salma Hany (EGY) 3-1: 4-11, 11-4, 12-10, 11-9 (47m); [1] Nada Abbas (EGY) bt. [8] Lucy Beecroft (ENG) 3-0: 11-5, 11-8, 12-10 (34m); [4] Farida Mohamed (EGY) bt. [5] Georgia Adderley (SCO) 3-1: 11-8, 11-5, 6-11, 11-6 (44m); [2] Fayrouz Aboelkheir (EGY) bt. [6] Lucy Turmel (ENG) 3-0: 11-5, 11-4, 11-4 (26m)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Malak Khafagy upset No.3 seed Salma Hany on quarter-finals day at the Open Squash Classic, a day which<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4332,"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-4331","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\/2025\/10\/Malak-Khafagy_compressed.jpg",2048,1365,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Malak-Khafagy_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Malak-Khafagy_compressed-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Malak-Khafagy_compressed-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Malak-Khafagy_compressed-1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Malak-Khafagy_compressed-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Malak-Khafagy_compressed.jpg",2048,1365,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Malak-Khafagy_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Malak-Khafagy_compressed-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\/2025\/10\/Malak-Khafagy_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331","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=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4333,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions\/4333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
[4] Leonel Cardenas (MEX) bt. Noor Zaman (PAK) 3-2: 5-11, 11-7, 11-4, 8-11, 11-7 (57m); Melvil Scianimanico (FRA) bt. Nick Wall (ENG) 3-0: 11-7, 13-11, 11-5 (36m); [3] Eain Yow Ng (MAS) bt. [6] Miguel Rodriguez (COL) 3-0: 12-10, 11-9, 11-2 (54m); [2] Victor Crouin (FRA) bt. Adrian Waller (ENG) 3-0: 11-4, 11-9, 11-7 (36m)<\/p>\n\n\n\n