Alan Clyne and Greg Lobban, Scotland's leading squash players, took the first steps towards what could be a dream final at the BE Personnel Loch Ness Challenger by negotiating the opening round in their native Inverness last night.
Top seed Clyne's victory was a relatively routine afffair as he subdued the Englishman Youssef Abdalla, a wristy shotmaker, 11-8, 11-9, 11-5 in the night's opening match.
While there was a trace of controversy about the injury-enforced exit of Lobban's opponent, the local lad had looked well on top. The 21-year-old was on the point of taking the opening game when Omar Abdel Aziz pulled up with what looked like a back problem. After Lobban won it 11-5, Aziz failed to return within five minutes and with George Tierney, the match referee, deeming the problem to be "self-inflicted" under PSA tournament rules, he was effectively disqualified.
Since the Egyptian was the No.2 seed, the draw now offers a real chance of Lobban and Clyne coming through in a tournament with a strong international field to contest the final.
As the Scotland No.1 pointed out, though, the calibre of the opposition is not the only thing they have to deal with this week. "It's my home club," he said. "I've played here since I was five so it is quite special to have friends from school and my parents along to watch. I can come straight here from home and my mum's cooking for me, so it's great . . . the only problem is that I need to remind myself that I am in a tournament because normally when I come home it is for a break. I managed to get myself into tournament mode pretty well today, though, and I'm pleased with how it went."
He noted, too, that looking towards the challenges to come this summer the experience was hugely beneficial for all three Scottish Commonwealth Games team members, Kevin Moran having done well to beat higher-ranked Englishman Chris Fuller to reach the main draw before pushing German Raphel Kandra, the sixth seed, hard before losing in four games last night.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article