Season Review: Breakthrough Performers Part One

After another thrilling season on the PSA World Tour, it’s time to look back at some of the players who have enjoyed breakthrough seasons.

Amina Orfi

Perhaps the breakout player of the season.

Amina Orfi was already on squash fans’ radars when she won the 2022 World Junior Championship and she has followed that up with a number of spectacular results on the PSA World Tour this year.

The Egyptian showed she was no pushover in a tight 3-2 defeat to Sabrina Sobhy in the opening round of the CIB Egyptian Open, before racking up three Challenger Tour titles at Jodhpur, Sutton Coldfield and Delhi.

However, it was at the PSA World Tour Bronze-level Squash On Fire Open that she truly announced herself to the world. Aged just 15, Orfi stunned in Washington D.C. as she downed established stars of the tour Lucy Beecroft, Sivasangari Subramaniam, Nada Abbas and Sabrina Sobhy to reach the final.

Although she lost out to Tinne Gilis in the final, Orfi proved that the run was no fluke as she gatecrashed the last 16 of the World Championships just a few weeks later, eventually losing out 3-2 to Hania El Hammamy after beating Ineta Mackevica and Olivia Clyne earlier.

Having rocketed up the rankings from World No.429 in August to World No.43 today, it’s no surprise that Orfi – still only 16 years old – is already being talked about as a potential future World No.1

Victor Crouin

In his first full season on the tour after graduating from Harvard last year, Victor Crouin wasted no time in proving he meant business.

In his first event of the season, the Bronze-level Zed Squash Open, Crouin impressed as he reached the final, where he eventually lost out to Egypt’s Youssef Soliman.

The Frenchman followed this up with a spectacular run at the Platinum-level Qatar Classic, reaching a maiden Platinum final as, unseeded, he beat Joel Makin, Patrick Rooney, Abdulla Al Tamimi and Tarek Momen before slipping to a 3-1 defeat to Mohamed ElShorbagy in the final.

Crouin then made it a hattrick of World Tour finals as he reached championship match on home soil in the Bronze-level Open de France and it proved third time lucky, with No.4 seed Crouin besting Egyptian top seed Marwan ElShorbagy 3-2.

Since that win in Nantes, Crouin has gone on to win one more Bronze title, the Squash On Fire Open, and reached the final of the Bronze-level Canadian Open, the semi final of the Silver-level New Zealand Open, and won the Challenger Tour 30 Chicago Open.

Having broken into the top 10 and achieved a career-high ranking of No.7 this season, Crouin will be targeting more silverware in the coming months.

Nele Gilis

While Gilis has been a mainstay at the business end of major tournaments for some time, this season the Belgian took her game to the next level.

Gilis’ campaign began well, with a title in her second tournament of the year at the Open de France, beating her sister Tinne 3-0 in the final. Success came consistently throughout the season, with the Belgian winning the Bronze-level Malaysian Open Squash Championships, reaching the semi finals of the Silver-Level New Zealand Open and winning the Challenger 30 Australian Open.

However, it was the end of the season where Gilis was arguably the most impressive. The 27-year-old enjoyed a respectable quarter-final finish at the World Championships, before shocking Manchester Open top seed Joelle King en route to the final, where she lost out to Nour El Tayeb.

In the final Platinum event of the season, Gilis saved her best form for last as she reached a maiden Platinum final at the El Gouna International, with her incredible 3-0 win over seven-time World Champion Nour El Sherbini shocking the home crowd.

Now ranked a career-best World No.6, can Gilis push on and crack the top five?

Mazen Hesham

What a year for Mazen Hesham. Like Nele Gilis, his talents have never been in question, with the mercurial Egyptian ever present at the game’s biggest tournaments in recent seasons.

This year, however, was a special one for ‘the Falcon’. With his injury troubles largely behind him, Hesham has been able to demonstrate his thrilling brand of squash on a far more consistent basis.

Nowhere was this more keenly felt than at the Bronze-level Malaysian Open, where Hesham brilliantly fought back from 2-0 down in the final to Tarek Momen to win his first title since the 2015 Houston Open some seven years prior.

Since then, Hesham has gone on to reach the finals of the Silver-level Motor City Open and the Bronze-level Hong Kong Football Club Open, as well as the semi finals of the Platinum level British Open and two Gold-level events: the Houston Open and the Optasia Championships, the latter of which was achieved with an impressive 3-2 win over Ali Farag.

Can ‘the Falcon’ soar to even greater heights this year?

Who have been your breakthrough stars this season? Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads! Or, come back to psaworldtour.com tomorrow for part two of the series.

Watch the best of the 2022-23 PSA World Tour action over on SQUASHTV.