Windy City Open RD3: Rösner Too Sharp for Waller

German No.1 Simon Rösner is through to the quarter-finals of the Windy City Open presented by the Walter Family after seeing off the threat of England’s Adrian Waller at the University Club of Chicago.

Rösner was sublime in the opening two games and showed little signs of fatigue from his 73-minute battle with Egypt’s Mohamed Abouelghar 48 hours previously, dominating the ‘T’ and punishing Waller with an immaculate short game.

Waller sparked up in the third and the World No.20 was far more combative, at times it looked like two heavyweights slugging it out for superiority, with some sensational rallies drawing raucous applause from the spectators.

A couple of errors towards the end though handed the momentum back to Rösner, and the the World No.7 made no mistake as he completed an 11-8, 11-4, 11-9 victory to set up a quarter-final clash with former World No.1 Karim Abdel Gawad.

“Two heavyweights slugging!”

Absolutely ferocious squash from these two, with @simonroesner in the ascendency against @Adiewaller#WCOsquash pic.twitter.com/uFcU4cYUtS

— PSA World Tour (@PSAWorldTour) March 1, 2020

“I played well, it wasn’t easy to come out after the match two days ago,” Rösner said.

“It was very difficult to play him because he’s just as tall as me, probably taller. He’s got an even bigger reach than me, so I had to make sure to get the ball into the corners so he couldn’t stand on the ‘T’ and punish me with his short game.

“I thought I did well for the first two and in the third I maybe dropped energy-wise a little bit, so I’m glad I got the win off in three as that will help me to save a little bit of energy ahead of tomorrow’s match.”

Rösner is known on tour as the ‘German Tree-Chopper’ and he opened up on his reaction when he first heard the nickname.

“I think it was quite fitting really, just looking at my swing on the forehand, it looks like someone is chopping trees in the forest!” Rösner said.

Result
[7] Simon Rösner (GER) bt Adrian Waller (ENG) 3-0: 11-8, 11-4, 11-9 (39m)