Yannick Wilhelmi (Sui) 3-2 Toufik Mekhalfi (Fra) 11-8, 11-8, 11-13, 8-11, 11-9 (86m)
Closing in on victory in the final match of the night, Yannick Wilhelmi was forced into a blood injury break after taking a blow to the mouth in Mekhalfi’s follow-through.
The Swiss had looked in composed form thus far on the all-glass court in Cairo, taking the first and second games, both 11-8.
Upon his return to court, Wilhelmi moved to three match balls up, but Mekhalfi refused to go down without a fight, saving all three before winning the subsequent tie-break and then levelling the match 11-8.
At 8-6 in the fifth it looked as though Mekhalfi was about to pull off the comeback, but a pair of tins followed by a loose shot from the Frenchman opened the door for Wilhelmi to rescue the situation.
The Swiss latched on the momentum and moved through to clinch the fifth game 11-9 and set-up a second-round tie with second seed Paul Coll.
And breathe….
“It’s definitely good for me to have a match on the glass court. I’m not usually playing on glass and Paul Coll is probably used to it. “I’m happy to get a match in and hopefully I will recover for tomorrow okay.” How about this flick from Toufik Mekhalfi! 😮💨 The Frenchman has saves THREE match balls to send the last match of the evening into a fourth game… 🍿 📺 @SquashTV pic.twitter.com/T8wKrt14sr — PSA Squash Tour (@PSASquashTour) October 10, 2026
