Season Preview: What to look out for Pt1

The 2024/25 PSA Squash Tour season gets underway in less than two weeks time. The opening major event of the season will take place from Giza, Egypt for the CIB Egyptian Open, the first ever Diamond level event. Every PSA season is always full of excitement, drama, athleticism and storylines and we’re expecting even more in the upcoming campaign.

We’ve identified six things that we think you should be looking out for in the coming season. In part one, we’re looking at a new level of event, the World Junior Champions and the most in form player in the world. Stay tuned for part two.

Copper events

A new addition to the PSA Squash Tour for the 204/25 season will be the introduction of Copper level events. These events will have a total prize pot of 25k and will feature 24 player draws. This size event will enable players ranked outside the world’s top 50 to get a taste of what World Tour events are like and enable them to potentially progress up the rankings, earning more points and prize money.

The Copper events are also a great chance for players ranked between 20-40 to pick up hard earned PSA titles. Previously, once that ranking bracket was reached, players were featuring in large draws at Platinum events for the majority of the season so titles have been a rarity for a lot of players outside the world’s top 10. We will be guaranteed a wider variety of winners on the PSA Squash Tour this season which can only progress the game forward. The opening three Copper events have all been confirmed for September with the NASH Cup, Charlottesville Open and Budapest Open becoming the first to adopt the new size of event.

World junior champions attacking World Tour events

Winning the prestigious World Junior Championships has often been an indicator for success on the PSA Squash Tour. Current world champions Diego Elias and Nouran Gohar, British Open champion Mostafa Asal and World No.3 Hania El Hammamy are amongst the winners in the past 10 years. The winners of the 2024 editions both hail from Egypt with Amina Orfi and Mohamed Zakaria picking up the 2024 crowns in Houston this summer.

Although Orfi is already well established at the top of the women’s PSA rankings, we anticipate a big season for the 17-year-old. The 23/24 season was the teenager’s first full season on tour and she certainly made an impact. Orfi reached the quarter finals of two Platinum events last season and also claimed the Squash On Fire Open title. Now sitting at World No.11, we anticipate a strong attack on the top 10 from Orfi as she eyes more titles and scalps.

Men’s champion Mohamed Zakaria became the youngest ever World Junior Champion as he overcame Republic of Korea’s Joo-yung Na in the final. The Egyptian has already risen to a highest ranking of World No.62 after an impressive opening season. A particular highlight coming from Karachi, Pakistan as he claimed the 16th CNS International Squash 2024 20k event, the biggest win of his career to date. He also reached the final of the prestigious Irish Open, losing out to another rising star Jonah Bryant in the final. The determination of the 16-year-old is clear to see every time he steps on the court and with more chances to compete in bigger sized events presenting themselves this year, we anticipate big ranking movements from Zakaria.

Nouran Gohar’s form

The new women’s world champion Nouran Gohar found the form of her career at the back end of last season. After being sidelined between September and January, Gohar returned with fire in her eyes, reaching the final in 7 of her next 10 events and winning the last five events of the season. The major highlight came on home soil as she finally captured the PSA World Championships trophy, beating 7x champion Nouran Gohar in the final. This came before victories at the British Open and PSA World Tour Finals.

Gohar has held the World No.1 ranking before, and will be desperate to return to the top. The form that she showed in the latter stages of the 23/24 season was incredible and her performances were sublime. With the new confidence from multiple victories over ElSherbini, we can see a big push from Nouran Gohar at the start of the new campaign and for the first time since the start of last season, a fight for the World No.1 spot.