Worlds Update: Gregoire Marches on to Third Round

#PSAWorldTour

World No.36 Gregoire Marche bridged a 22-place World Rankings gap to dump South Africa’s Stephen Coppinger out of the 2015 PSA Men’s World Championship and reach the third round of the sport’s showpiece event for the first time.

The match was a slow-burner with the first game between the pair littered with lets and the referee was called into action a number of times. It was Coppinger who eventually made the breakthrough, pulling away mid-game to take the lead.

The scrappy nature of the first game was replaced with a more free-flowing tempo of squash in games two and three with some fantastic retrievals from Frenchman Marche allowing him to withstand Coppinger’s attempts to take points at the front of the court as he took the lead for the first time in the fixture.

Cape Town-based Coppinger shifted the momentum in the fourth with a combination of fine court craft and patient play allowing him to gain governance of the ‘T’. Marche sought to up the tempo but it resulted in some unforced errors from the Frenchman which allowed Coppinger to close the game out and send the match into a fifth.

However, Marche started well in the fifth and racked up an unassailable lead to take the match with a 6-11, 11-4, 11-8, 3-11, 11-7 triumph. The 25-year-old will join compatriots Gregory Gaultier and Mathieu Castagnet in the next round where he will play either Tarek Momen or Diego Elias for a place in the quarter-final.

“When I got here four days ago I was a bit sick and I was training with jet-lag,” said Marche.

“The French team did a great job to help my body recover and I felt pretty good today. I’m so happy, I was waiting for this kind of win, especially at the World Championship.”

Result – Second Round: PSA Men’s World Championship 2015
Gregoire Marche (FRA) bt [15] Stephen Coppinger (RSA) 3-2: 6-11, 11-4, 11-8, 3-11, 11-7 (88m)

The 2015 PSA Men’s World Championship is live on SQUASHTV. Don’t miss a minute of the best squash action. Visit SQUASHTV and subscribe now to watch more than 400 matches live every year.