DEREK RYAN scored his first big win of the new squash season at the Hong Kong Open yesterday when he beat world number five Simon Parke 3-1 (15-11 15-11 2- 15 15-11) to book his place in the second round of the Super series event.
Ryan was well beaten by the Englishman on the last occasion the pair met but this time he seized the initiative from the start and won each of the first two games to 11 to move to the brink of victory.
"Simon came out like a train in the third, though, and he had built up a biglead before I even got going, said Ryan afterwards "so I let it go and just took the time to get things together for the fourth."
The approach worked well for the Dubliner who, taking ad vantage of the lower tin used in Super Series events, kept the ball low and forced Parke to cover a lot of ground. The English international just about held his own early in the game but it was Ryan who was always forcing the pace and once again he enjoyed a four point margin at the end which was enough to book his place in the tournament's last 16 stage.
"It was a good day and I played the big points well," said Ryan, ,adding that "if I can keep up that sort of form I could do some damage here over the next few days."
Next in line for the 26 year old from Killiney is Paul Johnston of England, who, despite being ranked seven places below Ryan in the world list of 21, has quite a good record against him.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)