Jonny Williams Expecting Firecracker Season With Plenty Up For Grabs

The new PSA season is less than two weeks away with the first ever Diamond level event in Giza, Egypt opening the new campaign. The CIB Egyptian Open will see the return of a qualification draw, due to start on the 26th August. A total of 152 players will compete across both draws, all looking to start the season on the front foot.

Former World No.15 and SQUASHTV commentator Jonny Williams has been busy looking ahead to the new season and dissecting the battles that may happen throughout the entertaining campaign. Jonny has also identified four players that he feels can make big pushes up the rankings and surprise a few higher ranked players this season.

Men’s One to Watch

The newly crowned World Junior Champion – Mohamed Zakaria – is the first name that jumps out here for me. Ranked 62 in the World, I’d expect him to be pushing for a top 30 position by season’s end. The 16-year-old has incredible maturity on court, has a game built on immaculate line hitting, straight attacks with lethal accuracy – particularly in the front left – as well as the necessary mix of angular variety at the right time. More than anything, he has a hunger and ambition which my sources tell me is heavily backed by a strenuous training regime.

I dare say he has his 10,000 hours of high intensity training already in the bank – this guy is going up like a bullet!

Snapping at the heels of Zakaria not only in the PSA Rankings, but also in the last few years of Junior H2Hs is the Englishman Jonah Bryant. Bryant is yet another sizzling prospect, a long time protege of Rob Owen – he has been drilled in the finer art of precision squash & extremely clever ball movement. Technically rock solid, Bryant also has shown a natural affinity to play high octane squash & explore the front corners with great variety. The test will be that he doesn’t over-extend his position in the court and acquire the necessary patience to work through the tougher battles he’ll now face day in, day out on tour. 

My educated guess is that he’ll tighten the screws on his back court game and learn quickly. Watch for Jonah to be moving in the same direction as Zakaria – let the race to the top 30 and beyond begin.

Women’s One to Watch

Straight out of the blocks – ‘Southpaw Sobhy’ will be chomping at the bit to assert herself back in the top five in the Women’s game. [Amanda] Sobhy has the power based, attacking game style which allows her to get through early round matches in quick fashion. 

Adding to that, she’s shown that she has the ability to trouble all of the ‘big three’ – who have had a stranglehold on the 1-2-3 positions for over two years now. Sobhy’s current ranking of 10 will begin to drop rapidly, but she’ll no doubt be the beneficiary of a ‘pegged ranking’ upon her re-entry. She won’t need too many opportunities to make some noise and be at the business end of major events!

Very much a cliche now to be stating that [Amina] Orfi is ‘One to Watch’. Her meteoric rise to World No.12 (along with Junior compatriot [Fayrouz] Aboelkheir to No.16) was the talk of the town for the entirety of last season. Now the question heading into the new season will be can Orfi continue to push into quarters/semis of the major events? My belief is YES. The immaculate line-hitting, backed by an unquenchable thirst for success, now needs her front court game and finishing qualities to go to the next level. If she can add more subtlety to the straight attacks both sides, some nice ‘holds’ around the front – then her march up the PSA rankings will slowly (but surely) continue.

Men’s Top 4 Battle

The top four reigned supreme in the 2023/2024 season, mostly dominated by [Ali] Farag and [Paul] Coll taking the lion’s share of big titles – until  [Diego] Elias and [Mostafa] Asal finally broke through with their first ‘majors’. Elias the World Champion and Asal British Open Champion. Now while these victories should no doubt instill a greater sense of belief and confidence into the world numbers three and four, it’s highly unlikely there’ll be any drop off from the top two Farag and Coll. Paul Coll’s form going into the majors looked to be spotless, he was desperately close to being in the finals of the two majors – he will have the No.1 spot very much in his sights and is surely a good bet to be the best man on the planet in the coming season.

Farag will remain the evergreen performer that he is. Can Elias & Asal reproduce the brilliance they showed regularly enough to dislodge the top two from their perch? One thing is for sure, the ageing top 10 (average age of 30.6 years) is one of immense quality, full of grandmasters of their craft. [Mazen] Hesham is constantly a threat with his wizard like skills, [Karim Abdel] Gawad, [Tarek] Momen and Mohamed ElShorbagy are always capable of big performances. Can they string multiple efforts though to collect more big titles?

Joel Makin seems to be glued to the No.9 ranking. Never underestimate the ‘Golden Tiger’ – his commitment to elevate his profile in the top 10 is unwavering. Let the games begin in Cairo at the end of August for the first event.

Women’s Top 10 Battle

As we move into an era of women’s squash where the benchmark seems to keep getting higher, the shifting of positions in particular from positions 4-10 will likely continue. [Nouran] Gohar, fresh from being crowned World Champion for the first time, will be hell bent on chasing down top position from arch rival [Nour] ElSherbini. [Hania] El Hammamy needs to get her body right, but is a proven entity against the top two and as the ‘youngest’ in the top 10 at 23 years of age – she remains the biggest threat to ElSherbini and Gohar.

The Gilis sisters [Nele and Tinne], [Gina] Kennedy and [Olivia] Weaver will continue to tweak their games and their consistency will see them remain in the ranking bracket of 4-10. The big question for me will be if Amanda Sobhy & Amina Orfi will be the ones who bring additional heat into the 4-10 positions, which will make for great viewing throughout the season, as well as good storylines for those doing the post event analysis!