Tuesday, 14 August 2012:

Favourites Cameron Pilley and Ramy Ashour have both claimed comfortable opening round victories in the Australian Open squash tournament in Canberra.

Australian No.1 Pilley easily accounted for Matthew Karwalski, claiming an 11-7 11-5 11-7 victory to move into the second round.

Ashour, the 23-year-old Egyptian, dismissed New Zealand qualifier Kashif Shuja 11-6 11-6 11-6 as he and Pilley begin a journey towards a likely semi-final encounter.

"It's been a while since I played a proper competitive match so I wasn't too sure how I was going to feel or hit it, so I was quite pleased," Pilley said.

"I've had worse first round results than that before."

Pilley now takes on Zac Alexander, who beat wildcard Rex Hedrick in another all-Australian clash 11-8 7-11 11-2 11-3.

Ashour will play young Englishman Olivier Pett who was impressive in his 11-4 11-5 11-7 win over Hong Kong's Dick Lau.

Earlier, sixth seeded Swiss player Nicolas Mueller ended Australian qualifier Aaron Frankcomb's tournament with a highly entertaining 11-5 11-7 11-6 victory.

Other winners included eight seeded Malaysian Nafiizwan Adnan, Hong Kong's Leo Au and Omar Abdel Aziz from Egypt.

AAP