Princeton Alums Reach Both The Men’s And Women’s Hong Kong Open Finals By Rob Dinerman Dateline December 7. 2025
--- In a remarkable achievement for the squash program at Princeton
University, two of its recent alums --- Youssef Ibrahim, Class of 2022,
and Olivia Fiechter Weaver, Class of 2018 --- advanced to the final
round of the Milwaukee Hong Kong Squash Open this past week. Their
joint accomplishment marked only the second time that graduates from
the same college have attained that stage of a PSA Platinum tournament,
the one precedent having occurred two years ago in the 2023 edition of
this same event when former Harvard superstars Ali Farag and Amanda
Sobhy also reached the draws’ respective final rounds. Ibrahim backed
up his recent ascent to the China Open finals by defeating three-time
and current U.S. National Champion Timmy Brownell, Dimitri Steinmann,
former British Open Champion Miguel Angel Rodriguez (all in three
games) and World No. 2 Paul Coll (before losing to World No. 1 Mostafa
Asal), while Weaver rolled past Mariam Metwally and the Gilis sisters
Nele and Tinne (also by 3-0 scores) to reach the semis, where she
conquered Satomi Watanabe in four games before losing her final-round
match to eight-time World Open Champion Nour El Sherbini. Just as the
college careers of Farag and Sobhy (Classes of 2014 and 2015
respectively) overlapped, so did those of Ibrahim and Weaver, who was a
senior in 2017-18, Ibrahim’s freshman year. Both were first-team
All-Americans not only during that shared year but throughout their
college years, as was the case with Farag and Sobhy as well.
In addition to Ibrahim and Weaver, there were 11 other recent U.S.
college squash grads in the Hong Kong draws, four men --- namely
Brownell, Victor Crouin (both from Harvard), Aly Abou Eleinen (Penn)
and Juan Vargas (Trinity College) --- and seven women, including
Harvard alums Sobhy, her younger sister (and first-round opponent)
Sabrina, Hana Moataz and Marina Stefanoni, along with Simmy Chan
(Columbia), Siva Subramaniam (Cornell) and Melissa Alves (Penn). The
fact that more than 20 percent of the 64 combined players in a PSA
tournament of this magnitude consisted of American college squash alums
(who between them accounted for eight Intercollegiate Individual
titles) is a compelling sign of how strong U.S. college squash has been
during the past decade, with the current 2025-26 season promising more
of the same.
Rob Dinerman has written five Histories of college squash, the most recent of which --- A Century Of Champions: 100 Years Of College Squash, 1923-2023 --- was released in March 2024.
