The Jonah Barrington Column: January 2023

One of the sport’s greatest thinkers and a pioneer for the professional game, Jonah Barrington offers his thoughts on all of squash’s biggest talking points in a new monthly column – written exclusively for the PSA World Tour website.

In this month’s column, Jonah discusses Mostafa Asal’s ascension to World No.1 and the recent J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions

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By Jonah Barrington

Right now, it strikes me that the men’s game at the top end seems to have more lines than most soap operas!

One way or another, Mostafa Asal is currently close to the core of everything. He has arrived at No.1 in the world almost by default, with Ali Farag struggling with a worrying knee joint injury and unable to defend what seemed like a significant points advantage over his main rivals.

The match which sealed the deal in Houston earlier this month was almost certainly going to become controversial against a resurgent Marwan ElShorbagy, now showing strong signs of responding to the guidance of the great Rodney Martin, who is building an increasingly strong coaching portfolio with the likes of Nouran Gohar also in his stable.

That semi-final was pretty desperate, with Mostafa in the mood to use the unacceptable aspect of his physicality and Marwan, knowing what was at stake, set on gradually getting inside his opponent’s head to break his rhythm.

Asal’s problems on court are considerable and overt. The movement (e.g. trailing leg) and the left arm lingering on the enemy has to be remedied and that won’t happen overnight, believe me, while it will also tend to re-emerge when the pressure is firmly on.

If not addressed, however, Mostafa will find a strong referee will swiftly penalise him and that will guarantee a disqualification. You can also add to that the opposition playing the victim card and, let’s face it, with some justification.

Marwan, so streetwise and in a different league when it comes to the darker arts, may have made the most of what seemed to closer observers than me (far distant and on another planet!) to be a touch, not a blow, on a sensitive area!

That, of course, can be exceptionally painful and indeed in that respect I’ve had some experience! But Sheldon Anderson (match referee) was confronted with a decision to make without the guidance of the injury and the necessary medical endorsement.

God only knows anyway what that would have been!

It was inevitability suggested that Marwan might have been trying to engineer a disqualification, which could have been close to the mark considering Asal’s recent track record of “unintentional mishaps” on court.

Moving on from Houston to New York, Mostafa was most unwell in the Big Apple, Nouran too sadly and probably one or two others with a virus.

So we were unable to see how he would respond to the new challenge, especially with Paul Coll close on his heels. 

So, for now we must be patient as we await the next episode of our favourite soap!

Asal is already a remarkable squash player and we all knew that sooner or later he would become No.1 despite the heavy baggage sitting on his powerful structure. 

He is not, I can assure you, either Jahangir Khan or Jansher Khan at that age, nor indeed Ramy Ashour and his story looks to have so many twists and turns, but he does however have a huge amount to offer and I do hope for a long period.

That said, Mostafa must understand that the most difficult task for him now as World No.1 is to tread more warily and understand that he is a vital role model in this marvellous sport, so he must learn to play within the boundaries and spirit of our intricate game.

Turning to Diego Elias, ‘The Puma’ is at last beginning to fulfil his very considerable promise as an outstanding World Junior Champion and is now a strong candidate to win the top events.

He sealed the deal at the iconic ToC with a masterly performance in a fascinating tactical match with Coll and pressed repeat in a similar fashion against Marwan.

The ever popular Miguel Rodriguez belied his 37 years to take out Mohamed ElShorbagy and Mazen Hesham, and so there were two South Americans in the semis for the first time in a major – wonderful.

A special mention for Leonel Cardenas, a rising Mexican star who dealt a heavy blow to the Swiss rocket Nicolas Mueller, the latter still playing at an exciting level.   

When it comes to the women, they have saved so many tournaments over the last few years!

It was great to see Gina Kennedy returning after a troubling illness and injury phase to take out Olivia Fiechter at the Carol Weymuller, and there was more progress on offer from Satomi Watanabe with her run to the semis. Also from the talented and dangerous Yathreb Adel, who has been plagued with injuries from her junior days.

We knew that all the main ‘warrior women’ would do their utmost to deliver in New York and the encounter between Nour El Sherbini and Hania El Hammamy was, at times, off the scale and really quite wondrous.

Joelle King didn’t draw a breath and should have taken the first game against Nouran – if she had it could well have been a different outcome as ‘The Terminator’ was, unbeknown to the rest of us, already beset by a nasty bug.

We knew the final would be yet another classic, but illness sadly forced Nouran to withdraw after just one game and across the ocean, at my advanced age and in the middle of the nocturnal night, I felt cheated!

The young Egyptians just keep coming and in the third round of the ToC Jana Shiha took out the ultimate solid pro benchmark Sarah-Jane Perry in an epic five-game encounter that has sign-posted another bright future – they keep coming!

By the bye, just look at the results from the British Junior Open, young Egyptians impressed as ever, but now the Americans are definitely on the horizon.