September will be packed with action

Mohamed ElShorbagy and Ali Farag are likely to meet in the final in China next Sunday (Photo credit: PSA World Tour)

Main story: The world's best are back!

After a long summer break, the top players are back in competition mode next week in China, and then the one after in Nantes. September will be the beginning of a few action-packed months, including the individual World Championships.

The PSA World Tour never really stops, and there is no week without the year a tournament: for those seeking for points and eager to climb up the rankings, there are a bunch of smaller events in Australia during the summer. On the other hand, the top players haven't played a competitive match since the British Open, or the PSA World Tour Finals for those who qualified. After a well-earned break and several weeks of intense summer preparation, the squash stars will be back in action in September, where the schedule will be very busy - as it will be until the end of 2019. Here are the most important tournaments being held in the following weeks:

- Proceedings will be kicking off on Wednesday at the JP Morgan China Squash Open, with action from the second round onwards taking place in a glass show court atop The Peninsula Shanghai, overlooking the famous Shanghai Bund. While defending champion Mohamed Abouelghar had to pull out a few days ago due to a shoulder injury, Ali Farag and Mohamed ElShorbagy - who won the event in 2016 - are expected to contest the title decider in what will be their 17th meeting on the PSA World Tour. The pair won 10 titles between them and six of the seven PSA Platinum titles on offer during the 2018/19 campaign. Harvard-graduate Farag had the upper hand in their head-to-head record last season, winning three matches to ElShorbagy’s two. He is drawn on the same side of the draw as Indian No.1 Saurav Ghosal. Meanwhile, ElShorbagy is predicted to line up against younger brother Marwan in the semi-finals. Reigning champion Raneem El Welily heads up the women’s draw and she is seeded to face World No.4 Nouran Gohar in the final. El Welily beat France’s Camille Serme in last year’s title decider, and will look to avenge a quarter-final defeat to Gohar in May’s British Open. El Welily, the current World No.1, enjoyed the most successful season of her career in 2018/19, and after closing out the season with victory at the PSA World Tour Finals, will look to kickstart the new campaign with silverware in Shanghai. She is predicted to meet New Zealand’s World No.6 Joelle King in the semis. Gohar, meanwhile, has reached the final of the China Open three times before and will look to finally get her hands on the trophy. She is seeded to face England’s Victoria Lust and World No.5 Nour El Tayeb en route to the final.

- French No.1 Camille Serme will headline the Open de France – Nantes 2019 Presented by Tailor Capital when the PSA World Tour Silver tournament takes place between September 9-14 at the picturesque Chateau des ducs de Bretagne. The Open de France – formally known as the Open International de Squash de Nantes – has this year upgraded to a PSA World Tour event after featuring on the PSA Challenger Tour in 2018 and will use a best-of-three games format up to and including the quarter-finals, before reverting to the traditional best of five format for the semi-finals and beyond. The increase in prize money and prestige means Nantes will play host to a top-class draw featuring five of the world’s top 10 players across the men’s and women’s events. Men’s top seed Simon Rösner will line up against either Spain’s Borja Golan or England’s Richie Fallows in round two, while he is seeded to play three-time winner Gregoire Marche in the last eight. Still in the top half of the draw, Welshman Joel Makin is set to face home player Baptiste Masotti or Alan Clyne in round two, before a potential showdown with Fares Dessouky in the quarters. Egypt’s Zahed Salem will play either Spain’s Iker Pajares Bernabeu or PSA Men’s Young Player of the Year Youssef Ibrahim in the last 16, and then possibly last year's runner-up James Willstrop, while 2018 winner Declan James has been handed a tough draw: the Englishman receives a bye into round two, where he will play either Frenchman Mathieu Castagnet or India’s Ramit Tandon, while he is seeded to play No.2 seed Paul Coll in the quarter-finals. A repeat of the 2018 women’s final could be played as early as the second round, with Nele Gilis set to face either last year’s runner-up Emily Whitlock or Egypt’s Menna Nasser. The winner of that match with Gilis will play No.2 seed Sarah-Jane Perry, who will begin her title challenge against either Julianne Courtice or Alexandra Fuller’s first round match. French No.1 Camille Serme is guaranteed to begin her tournament against a compatriot. World No.34 Coline Aumard and Word No.44 Melissa Alves will battle it out in round one for the chance to face the top seed. England’s Alison Waters features on the same side of the draw as Serme and will play either Belgium’s Tinne Gilis or wildcard Enora Villard in round two, while United States No.1 Amanda Sobhy will face either compatriot Haley Mendez or Egyptian Mayar Hany.

- A few other players will make their 2019/2020 debut at the Oracle NetSuite Open 2019 in San Francisco, United States at the end of September, including men's world number 3 Tarek Momen and women's world number 2 Nour El Sherbini. Momen is seeded to face World No.9 Miguel Angel Rodriguez (also playing his first tournament of the season in SF) in the semi-final fixture on the bottom side of the draw, while 2017 winner Mohamed ElShorbagy is due to play Germany’s Simon Rösner in the top half. Also featuring in California are Joel Makin, Declan James, Marwan ElShorbagy and Ryan Cuskelly. In a very strong women's draw - the only two top 10 players missing being Nouran Gohar and Annie Au - Amanda Sobhy could face Nour El Tayeb in the quarter finals, and the winner of that match is seeded to play World Champion Nour El Sherbini in the semi-finals. World No.1 Raneem El Welily is predicted to play defending champion Sarah-Jane Perry in the quarter-finals on the opposite side of the draw, and then Camille Serme in the semis.

2018 winners Nele Gilis and Declan James have been handed in Nantes (Photo credit: PSA World Tour)

- Two other major events are taking place in Asia in September: the HKFC PSA International Squash Open 2019 - held in Hong Kong from 10th to 14th of September - could be a successful event for the local players, top 2 seeds being Leo Au and Max Lee in the men's draw and Annie Au and Joey Chan in the women's. Max Lee will also be the top seed in the Malaysian Squash Open 2019 in Kuala Lumpur (25-29 September), where the competition will be fierce in the men's draw with the likes of Nicolas Mueller, Youssef Soliman, Eain Yow Ng etc. 2017 and 2018 World Junior Champion Rowan El Araby tops the women's draw and the other contender for the title should be former World #5 Low Wee Wern, making her way back up the rankings after a very serious knee injury. 

Source: PSA World Tour

Other squash news in August

Campbelle Grayson wins the biggest title of his career in Texas

The Life Time Houston Open 2019 ($30,000) was the biggest tournament on the PSA World Tour in August, and Campbell Grayon claimed the most prestigious victory of his squash career over Scotland’s Alan Clyne in the final in Texas. Grayson and Clyne played for only the third time on the PSA World Tour, with the Kiwi maintaining his 100% record over the Scot. After Grayson won the first two games of the final, Clyne fought back to take the third to give himself a chance, but from there, the New Zealander took control once more, winning the fourth the claim the title. He did so despite enduring a 95 minute epic against the tournament’s No.1 seed Ryan Cuskelly the night before. Grayson had been two games down, but fought back to win the semi final against the Aussie.

Source: PSA World Tour

Campbell Grayson won the biggest title of his career in Houston last month (Photo credit: PSA World Tour)

A few qualifying events for the PSA World Championships took place in August, and here are the names of the players who booked their tickets: Aifa Azman, Reeham Sedby, Menna Hamed & Sunaya Kuruvilla (for the women's event, in Giza) and Aqeel Rehman, Ryosei Kobayashi and Youssef Ibrahim (men's event, in Doha). The women's event will be taking in front of the Pyramids of Giza from the 25th of October to the 1st of November, while the men will be battling in Doha from the 8th to the 15th of November.

Seven in a row for Egypt

For the fourth consecutive year, Egypt have won the three gold medals at the World Juniors Championships - see blog from the 4th of August for the individual events. It was even seven in a row for the Pharaohs in the girls' team event after the favourites denied hosts Malaysia a fierce comeback in the final. With a 1-3-2 order of play, recently crowned World Junior Champion Hania El Hammamy gave the Egyptians the start they needed when she overcame Aifa Azman, after the young Malaysian gave the home crowd something to dream about by taking the first game. “I never wanted to be the reason why the team loses so I went in there and I wanted to push hard for my teammates,” said Hania. “Winning the third game was big for me as it certainly gave me a lot more confidence and I’m really pleased to finish my junior career this way.” Trailing 1-0, the hosts then turned to 17-year-old world junior debutant Ainaa Ampandi to save their title hopes. And the KL youngster played the match of her life as she had individual bronze medallist Farida Mohamed by the throat several times. She led 2-1 and was 8-6 up in the fourth, when a cracked racket forced her to change equipment and that ruined her momentum. And Farida duly seized the initiative to nail the game, before stepping it up in the deciding fifth for an 11-9, 8-11, 4-11, 11-9, 11-4 win. “I looked to my team and coaches and I knew they needed me to win and I badly didn’t want to lose too, since it’s my first team event,” said a jubilant Farida. “Even when I was 2-1 down and trailing 8-6 in the fourth, I somehow managed to dig in and I’m happy that I managed to come back to win." Malaysia finish as bridesmaids for the second straight edition, while bronze medals were shared by Hong Kong China & England.

Source: www.squashinfo.com 

Malaysia caused them some trouble but Egyptian girls were crowned World Junior Champions for the 7th time in a row (Photo credit: PSA World Tour)

A variety of nations share silveware at the European Masters Championships

The Club Danube Erdberg at Wien was hosting the European Masters Championships a few days ago. English players grabbed most of the gold medals in the 55+ to 75+ categories, but other nations shared titles in the younger age ranges. Former PSA player Piedro Schweertman from the Netherlands dominated the O35 for his first Masters event, and Denmark's Cecile Mayer won in the women's. Former German international Florian Poessl came through as the winner in the Men 45+, while Sweden got two gold medales courtesy of Christian Drakenberg - who won in O40 for the 3rd consecutive time - and Fredrick Johnson (O55), who is now the only player to have been crowned six times: Germany's Simona Korell had won a title in the first five events but she was comprehensively beaten by English lady Andrea Santamaria. The home country clinched only one medal, but it was a gold for Clemens Wallishauser, who lived up to his #1 seeding in his first ever international masters event by winning the M45+ final against Mike Gregory from England.

Clemens Wallishauser won the gold medal in his home country at the European Masters Championships (Photo credit: Squash Austria)

--- September World Rankings

Egypt’s Raneem El Welily has stayed at World No.1 for a 10th successive month after the PSA Women’s World Rankings for September were released today. El Welily leads an unchanged top 20, while Nour El Sherbini (No.2), Camille Serme (No.3), Nouran Gohar (No.4) and Nour El Tayeb complete the top five. Similar situation in the men's rankings, where Egypt’s Ali Farag heads up an unchanged top 20. Farag, the 27-year-old from Cairo, has now held onto the World No.1 spot for a seventh successive month, while Mohamed ElShorbagy (No.2), Tarek Momen (No.3), Karim Abdel Gawad (No.4) and Simon Rösner complete the top five.

Source: PSA World Tour

September PSA World rankings (Photo credits: PSA World Tour)

September squash hotspots

--- Besides a busy schedule on the PSA World Tour (see above), two ESF events will take place in September. The European Individual Closed Championship starts on Wednesday in Bucharest, Romania. In the men's event, most of the higher ranked European players will not be featuring and therefore there appears to be three main contenders. Spaniard Borja Golan will be hoping to clinch his third gold medal in four years, but he'll have to overcome Nicolas Mueller (Switzerland) and then Raphael Kandra (Germany) in the final. In the women's, it will most likely be a French-Belgian affair: World #18 Nele Gilis, who has several medals in her collection but is yet to be crowned, will be the slight favourite but competition will be fierce with her younger sister Tinne and European Team Champions Melissa Alves and Coline Aumard - runner-up last year. If things go according to seedings, the semifinal line-up will be Nele Gilis v Melissa Alves and Coline Aumard v Tinne Gilis. 

Borja Golan (3rd from the left) will be one of the main contenders at the European individual Championships next week (Photo credit: Bild / Lennard Jessen)

A few weeks later, Edinburgh will be hosting the European Champions Cup. In the women's, Edgbaston are in contention for a 4th consecutive title but Pontefract are fielding a strong team this year with Sarah Campion and Hollie Naughton. In the men's, Paderborn and Worms have won most of the events since the event was launched and it's likely to continue this year as the two German clubs will be led by Simon Rösner and Paul Coll, respectively.