By NATHAN CLARKE
England’s Joshua Masters pulled off a major upset in the final round of qualification at the 2018 UCS Swedish Open to down top seeded Adrian Waller – 23 places above him on the World Rankings – to secure a place in the main draw of the PSA M70 event taking place in Linköping, Sweden.
The Bristol-based Masters had failed to impress as he struggled against local hope Erik Jakobsson in the first round of qualification, requiring four games to get past the Swedish challenger, but looked a more confident and complete player as he controlled Waller, taking a crucial second game 12-10, en route to an impressive win.
He will now line up against tournament top seed and World No.3 Ali Farag in the first round with hopes of causing a huge upset.
Elsewhere in qualification, experienced Finnish campaigner Olli Tuominen secured a 3-2 win over Germany’s Raphael Kandra – setting up a first round match with England’s James Willstrop – with Nafiizwan Adnan of Malaysia and Englishman Tom Richards completing the line-up of qualifiers.
Adnan took 71 minutes to battle past England’s Ben Coleman, while Richards took less than half the time to overcome Welshman Peter Creed in straight games.
Main draw action from the tournament – which first began in the 1970s and this year sees ActiPro Event celebrate their 15th year running the tournament – gets under way from 1:00pm, with all main draw matches shown live on SQUASHTV (Rest of the World) and Eurosport Player (Europe only), while tickets start from 100 SEK and can be purchased on the tournament website.
PSA M70 Men’s UCS Swedish Open 2018, Linköping Sporthall, Linköping, Sweden.
Main Draw First Round:
[2] Tarek Momen (EGY) v Mathieu Castagnet (FRA)
[Q] Tom Richards (ENG) v [8] Cameron Pilley (AUS)
[6] Daryl Selby (ENG) v Gregoire Marche (FRA)
Declan James (ENG) v [4] Simon Rösner (GER)
[3] Paul Coll (NZL) v [Q] Nafiizwan Adnan (MAS)
[WC] Rasmus Hult (SWE) v [7] Omar Mosaad (EGY)
[5] James Willstrop (ENG) v [Q] Olli Tuominen (FIN)
[Q] Joshua Masters (ENG) v [1] Ali Farag (EGY)
Qualifying Finals:
[6] Olli Tuominen (FIN) bt [4] Raphael Kandra (GER) 3-2: 11-8, 4-11, 11-6, 7-11, 11-5 (61m)
[2] Nafiizwan Adnan (MAS) bt [7] Ben Coleman (ENG) 3-1: 10-12, 12-10, 11-4, 12-10 (71m)
[3] Tom Richards (ENG) bt Peter Creed (WAL) 3-0: 11-7, 11-3, 11-8 (32m)
[8] Joshua Masters (ENG) bt [1] Adrian Waller (ENG) 3-0: 11-9, 12-10, 11-3 (39m)
First qualifying round:
Raphael Kandra (GER) bt Michael Babra (SWE) 11-5, 11-5, 11-6 (23m)
Olli Tuominen (FIN) bt Matias Tuomi (FIN) 11-4, 11-4, 11-6 (29m)
Ben Coleman (ENG) bt Filip Krüeger (SWE) 11-4, 11-4, 11-4 (23m)
Nafiizwan Adnan (MAS) bt Carl Remle (SWE) 11-6, 11-4, 11-5 (27m)
Tom Richards (ENG) bt Jami Äijänen (FIN) 11-8, 11-5, 11-7 (29m)
Peter Creed (WAL) bt Todd Harrity (USA) 5-11, 11-5, 9-11, 12-10, 11-9 (65m)
Joshua Masters (ENG) bt Erik Jakobsson (SWE) 11-5, 11-5, 8-11, 11-2 (37m)
Adrian Waller (ENG) bt Charlie Lee (ENG) 11-4, 11-6, 8-11, 11-3 (43m)
Picture courtesy of Swedish Open