Suppose, for a contradiction, that has no zero in the open disk. The strict boundary inequality implies no boundary zero either. Thus is holomorphic on a neighborhood of the closed disk: compactness and continuity keep nonzero in a sufficiently small neighborhood. Apply the Cauchy estimate to :This contradicts the assumed strict inequality. If , the conclusion is immediate without taking a reciprocal. Therefore has a zero in the open disk. This is a local form of the minimum modulus principle.