Golan & Rodriguez Hit World Ranking Heights
by Howard Harding

1 November 2013 - Whilst Egypt's Ramy Ashour extends his 2013 run into an 11th month at the top of the Dunlop PSA Men's World Squash Rankings, it is Spaniard Borja Golan and Colombian Miguel Angel Rodriguez who steal the limelight after reaching career-high positions in the new November list published today by the Professional Squash Association.

Ashour collected his ninth successive PSA World Tour title at the NetSuite Open in San Francisco last month - and last night moved to within one win of a 50-match unbeaten Tour run at the AJ Bell PSA World Championship in Manchester.

And second-placed Frenchman Gregory Gaultier also added to his Tour title tally in October, winning the PSA World Series Delaware Investments US Open without dropping a single game.

Englishmen James Willstrop and Nick Matthew hold onto third and fourth places, respectively, with Egypt's Karim Darwish at No5.

But the new rankings have a strong Hispanic flavour: It was after making the world top 10 in 2009 and becoming Spain's highest-ranked player of all-time that Borja Golan suffered a career-threatening knee injury which took him out of the game for nine months.

From an eight-year-low 103 ranking in May 2010, the determined Spaniard was back in the top 30 within nine months. After winning the Montreal Open last month - his 29th Tour title - Golan now celebrates a new best-ever world No8 ranking.

After overtaking Argentina's 1990's star Federico Usandizaga two months ago to become the highest-ranked South American ever, Miguel Angel Rodriguez makes further progress this month with a two-place rise to a career-high No14.

"It's amazing for me to be the best South American - and reaching two more positions makes me more proud of my work," said the 27-year-old from Bogota after reaching the last 16 of the PSA World Championship for the first time.

"But it's not easy to be where I am right now, coming from Colombia, as I don't have so many players to play with.

"But the things I am doing right now with David Palmer have been helping me in my game and my results.

"The top ten guys are very strong. I am happy to get two more positions. But 14 is not what I am aiming at - my target is top ten within the next six months."

November 2013 top 20 (inc. points average):
    (Prev)
1     [1]     Ramy Ashour     EGY     1,559
2     [2]     Gregory Gaultier     FRA     1,195
3     [3]     James Willstrop     ENG     921
4     [4]     Nick Matthew     ENG     825
5     [5]     Karim Darwish     EGY     679
6     [6]     Mohamed Elshorbagy     EGY     675
7     [7]     Peter Barker     ENG     597
8     [9]     Borja Golan     ESP     523
9     [10]     Omar Mosaad     EGY     460
10     [8]     Amr Shabana     EGY     416
11     [14]     Daryl Selby     ENG     389
12     [11]     Tarek Momen     EGY     378
13     [12]     Simon Rosner     GER     352
14     [16]     Miguel Angel Rodriguez     COL     324
15     [15]     Alister Walker     BOT     316
16     [13]     Cameron Pilley     AUS     298
17     [17]     Saurav Ghosal     IND     293
18     [18]     Laurens Jan Anjema     NED     274
19     [19]     Stephen Coppinger     RSA     268
20     [24]     Adrian Grant     ENG     250