The Jonah Barrington Column: December 2022

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 the recent Women’s World Team Championships as well as the New Zealand Open and run of Asia tournaments.

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By Jonah Barrington

At a distance it had to be a certainty. Egypt with its stellar line up had to win the 2022 WSF Women’s World Team Championships in Cairo. Surely this best ever group, even without the great Raneem (El Welily), would stroll home.

Yet, although the score line says 2-0 to Egypt against the USA in the final, that does not tell the whole story as the Americans, and especially Amanda Sobhy, had other ideas.

Amanda has had little success against World No.1 Nouran Gohar in recent times but this is not the player of the past and the American No.1 has made considerable improvements in all areas this last six months and she is still set on beating the only three Egyptians (Gohar, Nour El Sherbini, Hania El Hammamy) above her in the world rankings.

So, Nouran’s game was cleverly blunted with skilful use of height and depth fortified with sudden raids to the front court. Despite two dramatic matches prior to the final and refusing to be deterred by an early first game deficit Amanda gave Nouran (and her team mates plus a temporarily silenced crowd) a really difficult ride. 

Indeed she should have won a thrilling match in the fourth before losing it on a tie-break 13-11 and so ‘The Terminator’ (Gohar) survived and went away in the fifth. Although Nouran still knew she wasn’t safe until she reached the tape against such an indefatigable opponent.

A brilliant beginning and now this most formidable Egyptian squad had renewed confidence that the fearless Sherbini would settle this affair against Olivia Fiechter, who has also come on strongly in 2022. 21 minutes later the World Champion duly obliged.

Yet my lingering thought is what if the USA had won that elusive point in the fourth game of the first singles and now 1-1 in matches and then I fancy a confrontation between Hania (El Hammamy) and Sabrina (Sobhy) would have triggered pressure and nerves for the home support and their team!

Remember the US Open anyone and brilliant slomo Sunday between these two superb athletes when Sabrina pulled off the shock of the tournament at Hania’s expense? However it was not to be and Egypt were supreme.

Yet the four Americans had been especially threatening and coming together as a national team to take out local rivals Canada and then England, badly missing Sarah-Jane (Perry), and Gina (Kennedy), to reach the semis and finals for the first time, can be rightly proud of their efforts.

It was also great to see Camille Serme coming back one last time for la belle France and mounting such a valiant effort on behalf her country before they fell to Hong Kong China. Camille will be a big miss in 2023.

To make the quarters was a huge incentive for certain countries with the biggest upset coming in Pool C where Hong Kong China took out No.3 seeds England to top the group and a significant success for their rising team.

They had earlier beaten Malaysia to take out this year’s Asian Champions although the latter had the last word here.

We also saw the arrival in Cairo of two countries in Ukraine and Chinese Taipei for the first time and this has to be a great starting point for them, exposed to competitive action against the top pro stars on national service and enjoying the chance to absorb an extraordinary experience.

The Land of the Rising Sun fronted by the impressive and dangerous Satomi Watanabe, the tournament’s ‘Most Valuable Player’ no less, showed real promise for the future and although the full cast of countries was not in Cairo this only served to emphasise the increasing depth in the women’s game as more and more hungry female predators emerge in the jungle. 

Now returning to the PSA World Tour we had an amazing string of events in late October and November when Australia and New Zealand returned to the fold and there were fine wins for Miguel (Rodriguez) and Nele (Gilis) in Sydney and Joelle (King), home at last, and Mohamed (El Shorbagy) in Taranga, where there were a series of classy matches.

Then the far east beckoned and all the big hitter men, less the sadly injured Ali (Farag), were in the cast and Mohamed (ElShorbagy) completed back to back triumphs with Joelle (King) playing the best squash of her prodigious career in Singapore taking out Nour El Tayeb to demonstrate her continued competitive intent.

And another title for Nele (Gilis) over Olivia (Fiechter) with Tesni (Evans) and Rachel Arnold so competitive and finally a title for the popular maverick Mazen Hesham over Tarek Momen – amazing skills on show inevitably.

So, to Hong Kong, under restrictive conditions, where in the men’s there were a series of monumental five game battles like Mostafa Asal v Paul Coll, Diego Elias v Mohamed, Asal v Elias, which Diego should probably have won in three and may still be having nightmares over.

Yet the women’s event was simply unbelievable. With only Amanda at the top end missing and Hania taking out on successive days Nour El Tayeb in a tough four games, Nouran in five and Sherbini also in a five-game epic.

This was most remarkable and the final had Lisa Aitken in commentary stating it was the best women’s squash she had ever seen. 

I rest my case now for the women’s game.

The men have their big five with others still lurking and Victor Crouin has had a reality check but will respond and I have certainly taken note of Dimitri Steinmann’s advance up the rankings.

Yet my final thoughts this year are with the Dr Assem Allam’s family – he gave the British Open a home for 10 long years – essentially keeping it alive and in good order during a tricky period and for that alone we are all most grateful.

Also, and this is very personal, my thanks to Rex Bellamy, one of the most revered sports journalists and formerly tennis and squash correspondent for the London Times. 

Tennis was Rex’s No.1 passion and he was acknowledged by his peers as the best of the best with the written word but squash also owes him a very considerable debt for his support.

Happy New Year to all, and especially to those who support and promote the core game at Challenger level – it is the bedrock of our wonderful game.