Paul Drinkhall and Sam Walker won through their first matches at the Hong Kong Open overnight.

Drinkhall was pushed to a seventh set by Senegal’s Ibrahima Diaw, coming from 3-2 down to take the last two sets reasonably comfortably.

Click here to watch Drinkhall v Diaw (registration required).

Drinkhall, who climbed 24 places and back into the top 100 in the world at No 90 in the latest world rankings, next plays world No 31 Masataka Morizono of Japan.

Walker meanwhile recovered from losing the first two games against world No 369 Li Hon Ming of Hong Kong to post a 4-2 victory.

Click here to watch Walker v Li  (registration required).

Walker, who was up two places to No 86 in the rankings, will play Romania’s Ovidiu Ionescu (WR 50) in the second preliminary round tomorrow.

Drinkhall & Walker are also in the doubles and will start in the second preliminary round against Russia’s Vildan Gadiev & Kirill Skachkov.

Liam Pitchford, who dropped one place to No 15 in the rankings, is seeded into the main draw and will be in action on Thursday.

Results

Men’s Singles
Preliminary round 1
Sam Walker bt Li Hon Ming (HKG) 4-2 (3-11, 9-11, 11-8, 11-6, 11-8, 11-4)
Paul Drinkhall bt Ibrahima Diaw (SEN) 4-3 (5-11, 11-9, 4-11, 11-4, 8-11, 11-6, 11-7)