Farag & El Sherbini named PSA World Tour Players of the Month for August

Recent Paris Squash 2023 champions Ali Farag and Nour El Sherbini have been named as the PSA World Tour Players of the Month for August after capturing the opening Platinum event of the season.

Farag sliced his way through the draw in the inaugural Paris Squash 2023, he didn’t drop a single game on route to the semi-finals as he had to fight off the likes of Youssef Soliman, Greg Lobban and Victor Crouin to reach the final four. Once there he managed to come through a brutal clash with New Zealand’s No.4 seed Paul Coll, winning in 96 minutes to book a spot in the final.

World No.2 Diego Elias was Farag’s final opponent, with both the event title up for grabs as well as the World No.1 spot. Farag was slow to get going as he surrendered the first game tamely 11-2. The Egyptian started to wake up from here and after capturing a tight second game 13-11 despite being 9-6 down, found his groove and stormed to victory to pick up where he left off last season and claim another title and retain his position at the top of the rankings.

Nour El Sherbini came into the Paris Squash 2023 as the No.2 seed but finished last season on a high after winning the CIB PSA World Tour Finals.

The reigning World Champion has to defeat three tough compatriots in her opening three matches as she overcame Rowan Elaraby and Salma Hany both 3-0 before beating good friend and World No.6 Nour El Tayeb 3-1 in the quarter finals.

El Sherbini was ruthless in her final four match with first time Platinum event semi-finalist Georgina Kennedy. ‘The Warrior Princess’ took the opening game 11-7 but then only gave up seven more points in the following two games as she booked her final place in just 25 minutes.

Another major event final against Nouran Gohar awaited El Sherbini and after losing the opening game due to strong play from Gohar and a flurry of errors in the back end of the game, El Sherbini found top form from there to control the middle and negate her opponents attacks and power. El Sherbini won 11-4, 11-8, 11-5 in the final three games to score another win over her compatriot Gohar and regain the World No.1 ranking.