The Jonah Barrington Column: July 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 his monthly column – written exclusively for the PSA World Tour website.

In this month’s column, Jonah discusses the season-ending CIB PSA World Tour Finals and recaps the campaign just gone.

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By Jonah Barrington

The 2022-23 season seems to have been to me about the good, the bad and the ugly, and the CIB PSA World Tour Finals delivered to my ageing mind much the same message.

I sense that some very serious discussions and decisions have to be taken this summer by the governing body, main participants, referees and professional players to determine the myriad of issues.

Too many heads have been buried in the sand for too long.

The World Tour Finals gave us a further picture of the extraordinary standard at the top of the women’s game – perhaps more importantly, the emergence of players with very dedicated work ethics.

Georgina Kennedy, Nele Gilis and Olivia Fiechter have climbed into the rarer air but they, and so many others, must realise that the mountain peak is still at a distance (ask Amanda Sobhy!) and anything short of total commitment and dedication will inevitably lead to failure and disappointment.

There is only one guarantee – that daily intelligent intensive application will lead to progress.

Even though I am in my dotage, I do know more about this than everyone on the squash planet. So much on show this last season has been so good and at the ultimate test many of the matches have been wonderfully compelling.

The three-game battle between Nouran Gohar and Nour El Sherbini (57 minutes) was remarkable, but over the months there were so many fascinating encounters down the rankings also.

Further, there has been a compelling battle for the top spot in the men’s game, but that would not have been the case if Ali Farag had not suffered that knee injury in the autumn when well clear.

His return to the top when, certainly initially, well short of full fitness was amazing and said everything about his character and greatness as a player.

I feared for that knee throughout these recent months – he can now continue the relevant rehab in comparative safety.

The emergence of Victor Crouin is a great advertisement for the men’s game but he must know that this partial but exciting breakthrough is still well short of the pinnacle.

The 2022/23 season at the sharp end must be a stepping stone in experience for Victor to reach out to that rarer air. 

Again, what has been so good is the return of Karim Abdel Gawad, and I do hope he remains healthy and injury free as I am sure there are many new observers over the last months who have been mesmerised at times by this gifted but silent assassin.

Similarly, we have seen the unique qualities of Mazen Hesham in full flow with a greater awareness and slightly more balance to his game – he is terrific to watch.

I am not a fan of best of threes generally, but of course there can be decent matches and that particular process can accommodate the players who are closing down on it and also because the game is so demanding.

If one player has a much tougher route to the final than his opponent in the traditional set up, it can lead to a relatively one-sided match in what is the showpiece of the competition – there are no simple answers to this one, I fear.

Mostafa Asal was devastatingly good in Cairo in his semi with Ali and we had the clearest picture of just how good he might become. There was almost nothing untoward. 

The final with Diego was a rotten match littered with collisions that did not present the sport in anything other than an ugly light to certainly the mainline TV audience.

Diego, bizarrely without any support team, not even his father, has absolutely no problem with any other player – just think about that!

It should be a great match-up, it wasn’t, and there was no respect for a good referee – unacceptable.

The women’s final as always had the makings of one of the ultimate send-offs, but it seriously deteriorated into a ridiculous parody of what the game should be all about, with both players at fault. 

The disrespect to [referee] John Massarella was beyond contempt to someone who has given so much to the game for little financial reward, I must say.

That pointless implementation of the ‘Paddy Power’ play reduced the encounter to farce with scarcely anyone aware of what was or wasn’t in play!

Earlier in the day I had been enthralled by a tennis match between Alex de Minaur and Carlos Alcaraz – only two sets but a real contest and played at full stretch with the right spirit and respect with regards to the officials and the multitude watching on television.

That attitude and the terrific tennis sold it.

The shenanigans in Cairo left a very bad, ugly, and most undesirable odour.