Shabana Marks Ten Years In World Top 10 by Howard Harding 1 December 2013
- Egyptian squash maestro Amr Shabana has become one of an elite group
of squash legends to complete an unbroken 10-year run as a top 10
ranked player on the PSA World Tour.
The 34-year-old
four-time World Champion has climbed one place to ninth in the latest
Dunlop PSA Men's World Squash Rankings, released today, meaning he
joins modern day icons such as David Palmer, Thierry Lincou and Peter
Nicol as one of just a handful of players who have maintained a 10-year
top 10 presence.
"I feel very fortunate
to have had the career path that I did and still be able to compete -
these 10 years went so fast," said Shabana.
"I'll take every day
now to the end of my career with great joy and pride. I feel physically
and mentally as strong as I have ever been, but have been very unlucky
with illnesses and injuries the past two years, so I'm trying to keep
my head down and keep at it."
Cairo-based Shabana
made his debut in the top 10 in January 2004 after upsetting the odds
to win the 2003 World Championship, becoming the first Egyptian to
claim the title, before going on to become the first Egyptian to top
the Men's World Rankings in 2006, maintaining his stranglehold on top
spot for 33 months until December 2008.
"My greatest and
proudest achievement has to be my first World Open title in 2003," he
said. "Winning it four times has been a dream come true - but coming
from Egypt, a country which produced some of the greatest squash
players ever, and being the first Egyptian World Champion is something
I am very proud of.
"My ambitions now are
to win matches, each one as they come. The depth and standard has
increased immensely in the game over the past ten years - squash
players are without a doubt probably some of the strongest athletes
I've personally seen in terms of fitness and conditioning.
"As you go down the rankings, the conditioning capabilities and squash levels are still at their highest. "It was a huge shock
when I was ranked 11 in the world and won the world championship in
2003 - but right now it isn't far-fetched to have someone play well in
the top 20 and win the World Championship as they are just as good as
the world number one, which maybe wasn't the case before."
Elsewhere in the
December Rankings, Shabana's compatriot Ramy Ashour maintains his place
at World No.1, completing a 12-month spell at the top of the table.
Frenchman Gregory
Gaultier has maintained his World No.2 ranking while 2013 AJ Bell PSA
World Squash Champion Nick Matthew of England has moved up one place in
the standings to World No.3.
Rising 22-year-old
Egyptian star Mohamed Elshorbagy, winner of the recent Qatar Classic
and Banque Misr Sky Open events, rises two places to a career-high
World No.4.
Other players to mark
career-high rankings in the top 20 include Spain's Borja Golan (World
No.7), Columbian Miguel Angel Rodriguez (World No.13), India's Saurav
Ghosal (World No.15) and Egypt's Karim Abdel Gawad (World No.19).
December 2013 top 20 (inc. points average): (Prev) Pts 1 [1] Ramy Ashour EGY 1,675 2 [2] Gregory Gaultier FRA 1,262 3 [4] Nick Matthew ENG 1,252 4 [6] Mohamed Elshorbagy EGY 1,030 5 [3] James Willstrop ENG 991 6 [5] Karim Darwish EGY 763 7 [8] Borja Golan ESP 572 8 [7] Peter Barker ENG 560 9 [10] Amr Shabana EGY 532 10 [11] Daryl Selby ENG 484 11 [9] Omar Mosaad EGY 435 12 [12] Tarek Momen EGY 416 13 [14] Miguel Angel Rodriguez COL 350 14 [16] Cameron Pilley AUS 349 15 [17] Saurav Ghosal IND 346 16 [13] Simon Rosner GER 344 17 [15] Alister Walker BOT 300 18 [18] Laurens Jan Anjema NED 292 19 [22] Karim Abdel Gawad EGY 292 20 [19] Stephen Coppinger RSA 283
