Challenger Events
Bremer Schlüssel Day 1: Hapers & Evans Earn Hard-Fought Wins
Crowd favourite Joeri Hapers battled to a five-game win over Will Salter on day one in Germany, as action got underway at the Bremer Schlüssel 2024.
Hapers is the Belgian No.1 but is certainly a popular figure here in Germany, playing Bundesliga squash for Bremen at the Fitness & Squash Center Achim-Baden, where this event is being held.
Taking on England’s Will Salter in the fifth match of the day – with the first four all going the way of an Egyptian player – Hapers found himself 6-2 down in less than five minutes of game one, but turned things around to clinch the game on a tiebreak, 12-10.
Salter responded well by racing into another early lead in the fourth, only this time converting his advantage, moving swiftly from 6-1 to 11-5, to draw the players level.
The roles were then reversed in game three, as Hapers took a 4-0 lead only for Salter to claw his way back into it, eventually winning the game 11-9, but the tides would turn once again.
Hapers – now sporting a Bremen Squash Club T-shirt – saw two game balls come and go at 10-8 up in the fourth as Salter showed his determination, but the Belgian came out on top of the tiebreak once more, setting up a decider.
A fast start in game five was always likely to be crucial, and so it proved, as Hapers established a 5-1 lead, a lead that he would never relinquish, closing out victory on a stroke decision at 10-6.
Victory for the Belgian sets up a mouthwatering (and possibly crowd-dividing) second-round clash with another Bremen Bundesliga player, Yassin Elshafei, the No.3 seed who will be one of eight Egyptians in round two.
That figure would have been nine but for Evans’ defiant win over wildcard Taha Elshafei, Yassin’s younger brother.
Separated by only two years in age but almost 300 places in the rankings, there was little to split the two players on court across the first two games, with Evans perhaps making his experience count, taking them 12-10, 11-9.
But Elshafei was not about to throw in the towel, and took the next two games to send us all the way, albeit not before some entertaining squash from Evans, including a quite outrageous corkscrew boast.
The young Welshman was also forced into an injury break in game four, but came out fighting in the fifth, headlined by an outstanding point at 4-4.
Scrambling from left to right to keep the rally alive in the front corners, Evans somehow got back behind a forehand drive to crunch a winner down the line, with Elshafei throwing his arms in the air in disbelief as the crowd applauded the shot.
And that moment perhaps gave Evans the momentum he needed, as he went on to close out victory 11-7 a few minutes later.
Fellow Welshman Elliott Morris Devred rounded out the day with a routine win over wildcard Heiko Schwarzer, teeing up a round-two clash with second seed Mazen Gamal.
Round-two action begins at 12pm local time (11am BST) on Wednesday, July 24th, with all eight matches streaming live on the SQUASHTV Live Streaming YouTube channel.
Results: Round One
Joeri Hapers (BEL) bt Will Salter (ENG) 3-2: 12-10, 5-11, 9-11, 12-10, 11-6 (69m)
Rhys Evans (WAL) bt [WC] Taha Elshafei (EGY) 3-2: 12-10, 11-9, 7-11, 7-11, 11-7 (67m)
Omar El Torkey (EGY) bt Jan Wipperfürth (GER) 3-0: 11-7, 11-7, 11-8 (31m)
Khaled Labib (EGY) bt Jared Carter (ENG) 3-1: 11-8, 6-11, 11-4, 11-7 (49m)
Hazem Hossam (EGY) bt [WC] Yukhym Bielikov (GER) 3-0: 11-5, 11-6, 11-6 (25m)
Seif Tamer (EGY) bt Anthony Rogal (ENG) 3-0: 11-5, 11-6, 11-9 (19m)
Ondrej Vorlícek (CZE) bt Laszlo Godde (FRA) 3-0: 11-3, 11-4, 11-4 (23m)
Elliott Morris Devred (WAL) bt [WC] Heiko Schwarzer (GER) 3-0: 11-7, 11-4, 11-2 (27m)
