‘Everything Finally Fell Into Place’ For Nadine Shahin

At the end of another season, the PSA’s Matt Coles has been talking to the stars of the PSA World Tour about their 2018/19 campaigns. Here he catches up with Egypt’s Nadine Shahin.
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Egypt’s Nadine Shahin has spent the 2018-2019 season juggling her time between professional squash and studying at university, and she has managed it well.

The Egyptian admitted that it was tough to begin with, but that she was able to get her game together again for the second half of the season.

“This season has started with a rough patch for me, I was not playing that well and was under a lot of pressure since it was my last and most difficult year in my time at university,” she admitted.

“I felt that the second half of the season was much better; I started to focus again, cleared my head from any pressure and managed to get past the hardest tasks of my university degree.

“I felt everything was finally falling in place, and it really was; you can see the big progress I made starting from December. But overall, I can say it was a great season!”

Despite a slow start to her campaign, Shahin admitted that she was proud of three particular performances over the course of her season.

“I have three tournaments in which I was really content with my performance,” the Egyptian explained.

“Best one for me for sure was El Gouna 2019; where I took my revenge on Lucy Turmel and managed to beat Alison Waters, making it to round three for the first time.

“Second one was the Golootlo Pakistan Open 2018, where I beat hungry talented young players then fell short to Yathreb Adel in the final.

“My third favourite tournament performance this season was the FS investment U.S. Open 2018 where i came through a tricky match against Haley Mendez, then came so close to beat Salma Hany and make round three.

Shahin dropped as low as World No.33 in March, having struggled over the course of the New Year, but she came fighting back, and now sits at her highest ever ranking of World No.23.

“I’m so happy and relieved to be at my best ranking and so close to the top 20 after a rocky season,” she said.

“This makes me hungrier and more excited than ever to break into the top 15 really soon.”

And that is her main goal for the 2019-2020 campaign, as she wants to push her way further up the World Rankings over the course of the next twelve months.

“My main goal is to be top 15 by the end of this year. Try to push to the top 10 by the end of the season next year,” Shahin explained.

“The key is determination, concentration, mental toughness and consistency. You have to want it more than everybody else!

Keep a look out for the next player’s review of the 2018-19 season in the coming days, as Scotland’s Greg Lobban reviews his campaign.