Zahed Salem

Zahed Mohamed has enjoyed a meteoric rise up the World Rankings in recent years and has performed consistently well since he joined the PSA World Tour as a 17-year-old.

He lifted his first PSA World Tour title in 2011 at the Al Hassan Squash Open where he bested Qualifier Mazen Hesham in a comfortable 3-0 final rout. He doubled his title tally a year later when he won the Royal Jordanian Squash Open with local player Ahmad Al-Saraj being the unlucky party this time round.

A number of runner-up finishes followed over the next two years with a 3-2 defeat to Ali Farag in the 2015 Alexandria Open finale particularly proving to be a near miss. Despite this, a second round finish at the US Open enabled Mohamed to break into the world’s top 30 players for the first time in his career.

Mohamed went onto claim the Pakistan Navy CNS International Squash Championship title in 2016, where he beat Ahsan Ayaz, Tayyab Aslam, Todd Harrity en route to the final where he beat Omar Abdel Meguid after the Egyptian was forced into retirement in the third game to hand Mohamed the title.

The Egyptian then went on to back this up with another win, this time at the Pittsburgh Open at the start of 2017, where he beat Ivan Yuen over four games. He also went on to reach the final of the Sporta Guatemala X Torneo Internacional PSA Sporta that year, but he lost out to Mohamed Abouelghar on the day. Salem reached the semi finals of the Pakistan Open in his final tournament of 2017, before going on to win the Chamberlain Squash Open in 2018.

The Egyptian finished runner-up at the Kolkata International and London Open as well as reaching the semi finals of both the Open International de Squash de Nantes and the Motor City Open in the 2018/19 season. The Egyptian then finished runner-up at the Three Rivers Capital Pittsburgh Open, missing out on the title after losing to Gregoire Marche in the final.

Salem reached the semi-finals of the Open de France - Nantes presented by Tailor Capital in his first appearance of the 2019-2020 PSA World Tour season, before reaching the quarter-finals of the PSA Men’s World Championship in Qatar, his best ever result at the biggest tournament in squash.

Salem struggled throughout 2020, but continued to reach the last 16 of major tournaments, including the year-ending CIB Black Ball Squash Open in Cairo.

He only made five appearances on Tour in 2021, with all of those coming on home soil, but he reached the quarter finals of two Platinum level events in the process. He made the last eight at the El Gouna International Squash Open and the CIB Egyptian Open, losing out to Tarek Momen on both occasions.

Towards the end of the year, Salem also came close to success on the Challenger Tour, as he reached the finals of both the CIB Egyptian Challenger Tour 4 and CIB Egyptian Challenger Tour 5.