Bonmalais & Lobban Avoid Upsets As Seeds Progress At Pittsburgh Open

France's Sebastien Bonmalais staged comebacks in both game one and four to claim his place in the quarter-finals of the Pittsburgh Open, while No.7 seed Greg Lobban recovered from a game down to win on an entertaining day of second-round action in the PSA Squash Tour Silver event in Pennsylvania.

In the longest match of the day, Frenchman Bonmalais overcame two seemingly decisive deficits in the first and fourth games to defeat Egypt's Karim El Hammamy.

The Frenchman was behind in the first game at 6-10, but scored a run of five successive points to take the lead, eventually winning the tie-break 13-11.

Bonmalais carried the momentum into the second game, claiming a 2/0 lead before a resurgence from El Hammamy halved the deficit to 2/1.

The world No.25 again found himself trailing in the fourth game, this time 4-8, but another impressive string of points levelled it at 9-9, with the match ending on two no lets in favour of Bonmalais.

In another notable encounter on day two, Scot Lobban came back from a game behind to beat India's Velavan Senthilkumar.

The Indian started the match in strong fashion, covering the court well and neutralising the Scotsman's shot-making to take a 1/0 lead in the match.

Lobban grew into the match, coming out on top of a tense second-game tie-break before taking the lead 2/1 after being ahead throughout game three.

The world No.20 seemed to have secured a spot in the quarter-finals comfortably as he stormed to a 10-5 lead, but a late push from Senthilkumar saw four match balls saved before Lobban claimed the win 11-9.

Elsewhere, all seeds progressed to the last eight including France's Victor Crouin, Peru's Diego Elias, Welshman Joel Makin and Switzerland's Dimitri Steinmann - who all came through their respective bouts in straight games.