Greg Lobban Felt Great To ‘Finally Be In The Twenties’ In the World Rankings

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 Scotland’s Greg Lobban.
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The 2018-2019 campaign saw Scottish No.1 Greg Lobban make it into the twenties of the World Rankings, and he admitted that it “felt great”.

The Scot sat at World No.27 for two months in the early part of 2019 thanks to good results at the QSF No.1 and the Tournament of Champions.

“It felt great to finally be in the twenties,” the Scot admitted.

“I was ranked in the thirties for a long time before my injury and then once I returned to the tour I managed to climb back to that level again but to finally break through to World No.27 felt really good.”

Lobban has hovered around the top 30 for a while now, and has actually sat at World No.30 for nine of the last 18 months.

Over that time, the Scot has admitted that he has seen some improvements in his squash, but that he has also been slightly disappointed with his progress.

“I feel a little disappointed overall with my season but I have seen a lot of improvements in my game in the last year,” he explained.

“I’ve made some major changes in my game but also in my lifestyle and I’m confident that I’m doing the right things in order to move up the rankings in the coming season.

“I have had some good results but also some near misses, I’m hoping that I can turn some of those close ones into wins and have a more successful 2019-20 season next year.”

One of his best results of the season came at the Macau Open in April, where he beat an opponent ranked inside the top ten in the World for the first time in his career.

He overcame Indian No.1 Saurav Ghosal in four games to book his place in the semis in Macau, and Lobban believes it was his best effort of the campaign.

“Beating Saurav Ghosal has to go down as my best performance. It was my first win over a top 10 player so that was a good milestone for me to achieve,” he said.

“To beat the top guys you have to be in good order, both mentally and physically, and on top of that you have to be playing some very good squash to stand a chance so I was very pleased with that one.”

For the 2019-2020 season, Lobban has a couple of goals. He wants to improve on a career-high of World No.27, as well as ending a two-year run without a title.

“My main goal has to be to break into the world’s top 20. I would also love to win a World Tour event,” he said.

“I’ve been to two semi finals of Bronze events this year so I would like to win a title again, it’s been a while!”

Keep a look out for the next player’s review of the 2018-19 season in the coming days, as World No.10 Annie Au reviews her campaign.