Tsukue & ElSherbini Taken Full Distance In Motor City Openers

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 in Detroit, defeating Timothy Brownell and Rui Soares, respectively, as the 25th edition of the PSA Squash Tour Silver event got underway at the Birmingham Athletic Club.

Japanese No.1 Tsukue, who is currently placed 23 spots behind Brownell in the world rankings, delivered a performance full of terrific shot-making to defeat the US No.1 by an 11-8, 4-11, 11-13, 11-4, 11-7 scoreline in front of a packed crowd.

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.

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

In a match that saw a trio of tense tie-breaks, the Egyptian 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, teenage star Jonah 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 Alex Lau.

The 19-year-old dropped just 12 points and needed 23 minutes to set up a second round outing with world No.4 and last year's runner-up Paul Coll.