The popular Frenchman, now 37, required two knee operations, and put his regained fitness to its first test in his second-round match at Vanderbilt Hall, inside New York City's Grand Central Terminal.

Gaultier made a successful return to action during last month’s World Squash Federation Men’s World Team Squash Championship, and underlined his regained competitiveness as he came from 2-1 down to beat Mosaad, before celebrating extravagantly.

Gaultier has won this title once before, in 2009.

His third-round opponent, Egypt's Mostafa Asal, was only seven-years-old when he recorded that victory.

"It's a dream, I'm like a kid again," said Gaultier, who has fallen to 543 in the rankings.

"When you are broken for 15 months and you’ve got people telling you that you will never come back and never do any sport again in your life, I was like: 'I think you’re talking to the wrong person.'

"I kept working hard and believing that I could make it - at some point I had to say: 'let's do it, let's play'.

"I was training through the pain and then suddenly the pain started to settle down. 

"it's not quite there yet, but I managed to play at a kind of decent level.

"I'm not at where I was two-years-ago, but I think there's a chance and I still have potential to come back and do some good things for squash."

World number 21 Asal, who chose to compete here rather than defend his Dunlop Junior British Open title, earned his place in tomorrow's third round with a 4-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-7 win over world number nine and fellow Egyptian Mohamed Abouelghar.

Meanwhile, world number one and defending champion Ali Farag was tested by his Egyptian compatriot Mazen Hesham, the world number 17, coming from 2-1 down to win 11-3, 6-11, 8-11, 11-8, 11-3 and earn a third-round meeting with another Egyptian, Youssef Soliman.

In another top class all-Egyptian match, newly established world champion Tarek Momen beat Marwan ElShorbagy 9-11, 16-14, 11-7, 11-9, while the man he beat in this month's final, New Zealand's Paul Coll, defeated Qatar's emerging talent Abdulla Mohd Al Tamimi 11-3, 6-11, 11-6, 11-6.

In the women's tournament, 16 matches were split across Princeton Club of New York, the Harvard Club of New York and the New York Athletic Club.

There were five home players in action, with New York-born Olivia Blatchford Clyne and Sabrina Sobhy claiming wins at the Princeton Club.

Blatchford Clyne beat England's Jasmine Hutton in straight games to set up a last-32 meeting with world number nine Tesni Evans, while Sobhy, world-ranked 39, defeated Hong Kong's Joey Chan in four games to join older sister Amanda in the next round.