Barrington Predicts Which Rising Stars Can Upset Established Order This Season – Part One

The 2024/25 PSA Squash Tour season is well and truly underway, with Nour El Sherbini and Mostafa Asal capturing the first-ever Diamond event titles at the 2024 CIB Egyptian Open in Cairo.

Despite the women’s season picking up where it left off, with World No.1 El Sherbini and World No.2 Nouran Gohar contesting their fifth straight final on tour, the event highlighted that there are more players than ever before capable of challenging the established order. Last week alone saw World No.17 Nada Abbas reach a career-first major semi-final, World No.32 Sana Ibrahim cause a huge shock by defeating World No.4 Nele Gilis, and three-time World Junior champion Amina Orfi coming within two points of knocking top seed El Sherbini out in the third round of the event.

As we look ahead to what should be one of the most competitive seasons ever on the PSA Tour, we spoke to SQUASHTV’s Joey Barrington to see which rising stars could mount a challenge on those at the top of the world rankings on both the women’s and men’s tours.

Read on below for Joey’s preview of the women’s tour, while you can stay tuned for his men’s season preview by following the PSA on X, Facebook, Threads, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, or TikTok. 

The Big Three

Barrington: “I would love to see, and I think we will see, a bit more of Hania El Hammamy. She started off last season very well with Qatar and of course winning in Hong Kong under slightly more tragic circumstances with Amanda Sobhy. But I think Hania El Hammamy’s got a lot more to offer. I was predicting that she could get to the top of the tree a few years ago, but with the level that’s gone up from Nouran Gohar, there will now be a response as well, and I think the women’s levels again in all aspects of the Tour are going to be going up from the top end.

“Nour El Sherbini has had a very good summer getting married and you can understand that she would want to turn off a little bit from the squash, and she’s been doing it at such a high intensity for such a long, long period of time. Yes, she’s in her late twenties but she’s an older player in terms of the body and the injuries; I hope we get the response from her because obviously the rivalry between her and Gohar is brilliant, then you throw in El Hammamy to that as well. I’d like to see a few more different winners of the women’s major titles.”

The Chasing Pack

JB: “In the women’s game [the players the top three may be most worried about], we’ve talked about Sivasangari Subramaniam with what she achieved in the London Classic, winning all those matches, though it’s important to remember they were best of three matches initially, and then she came through and it was an unbelievable performance by her. Has she got the consistency, the mental capabilities to deal with the next phase of being able to back that up? That’s a big question mark for me, I don’t know if she does yet or if she will go into other parameters with these girls that are able to go through and win these events and get in the main areas of semis and finals time after time. That is just another realm of quality and mental quality as well.

“The chasing pack you’ve got Olivia Weaver, who sadly wasn’t at the Egyptian Open due to a back injury, and I don’t know how serious that is, but it is worrying for her because the momentum was huge last season. She was definitely one of those ones outside of the big three that I’d have been looking at to make inroads into latter rounds of these major events. So I hope that her recovery is swift and she’s able to get back on tour into these events that are coming thick and fast.

“And then you’ve got Nele Gilis, who went out early at the Egyptian Open. That was a real shock situation. I think she’s found the pressure hard after getting to number four. Tinne Gilis is always dangerous, she could always put things together and from the English players, Gina Kennedy is always going to be there if she’s got the physicality. 

“Amanda Sobhy will be coming back into the fold now. Before she got injured, she was literally playing the best squash of her career, she’d just beaten El Sherbini 3-0, so it’s great to see her back and I’m sure we’ll see Sobhy get right in the mix again. But there’s so many players that are stacking up through and we’ve already seen Sana Ibrahim who’s come through from nowhere really, so for me they’ve got this amazing rivalry at the top end of the women’s game.

“And then Rowan Elaraby who’s teamed up with Wael El-Hindi, who’s a hard taskmaster and he’s got her physically a lot stronger and a lot fitter. That’s proven with the results that she’s had and the way she plays. She had a great tournament in ToC in January showing a really good physicality there, so she’s also going to be certainly a consistent performer in the quarter finals and possibly sneak into a couple of semis. If she’s having a really good tournament I can see that with her.”

Rising Stars

JB: “There are these players that are coming through and some that are coming out of nowhere as well, relatively speaking. So the women’s tour is going to be incredibly exciting.

“These younger Egyptians are dangerous as well and that’s been proven by Sana Ibrahim. There’s a cluster of those that could cause problems. So, that will still be coming from the Egyptian side.

“I feel that the early rounds of women’s events are harder than ever before. It used to be around the quarters that it started getting tough, now the strength in depth as well as the level at the top end it’s just getting better and better. So we will see the kind of upsets like we’ve seen with Sana Ibrahim, so it’s an exciting season ahead.

“Obviously, World Junior Champion Amina Orfi is a massive danger. She is so hungry and wanting to win titles at just 17 years of age, and she’s going to get stronger and stronger. She lost out against El Sherbini in this tournament, she was 2-0 up and had her opportunities. So you’re looking at someone that can definitely cross into causing the top few players in the women’s game problems.

“Fayrouz Aboelkheir is in the same kind of junior age group, a little bit older than Amina Orfi, but lost in the World Junior Finals to her and has proven that she can take people down. She’s also a danger, so those two really stand out from the younger crop of Egyptian players.

“I think that these two are ones to really watch out for coming from the juniors into the seniors.”

The PSA Squash Tour rolls into Paris next week, with the Platinum-level Paris Squash 2024 set to take place at the Cirque d’Hiver Bouglion – the oldest active circus in the world – between September 15th to 21st.

To find more information on this event and all the other action coming your way from the PSA Squash Tour, you can follow the PSA on X, Facebook, Threads, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, or TikTok.