El Sherbini Makes it 40 Months at World No.1
Egypt’s Nour El Sherbini is celebrating her 40th month at the summit of the PSA Women’s World Rankings, meaning the 25-year-old has matched the total of Australian legend Sarah Fitz-Gerald as she moves up to joint-fourth on the list of all-time longest reigning female World No.1s.
Since first capturing the World No.1 spot at the age of 20 back in May 2016, El Sherbini has spent 40 of the past 63 months atop the PSA Women’s World Rankings and has held the position unchallenged for the past nine months in succession.
However, World No.2 Nouran Gohar’s title win at the CIB PSA World Tour Finals last week has seen the 23-year-old emerge as the biggest challenger to El Sherbini’s throne, and she could overthrow her fellow Egyptian at the upcoming PSA World Championships presented by the Walter Family between July 14-22.
Gohar, who spent four months at World No.1 between July-October, 2020, just has to match El Sherbini’s results at the event to guarantee she holds the World No.1 spot on August 1, while a failure to reach the semi-finals for El Sherbini will see her ranking go to Gohar regardless of how Gohar gets on.
The rest of the top five features Nour El Tayeb (No.3), Camille Serme (No.4) and World Tour Finals runner-up Hania El Hammamy.
The only change in the women’s top 20 sees England’s Sarah-Jane Perry move up to No.7 ahead of USA’s No.1 Amanda Sobhy.
Bulgaria’s Selena Georgieva and Singapore’s Sneha Sivakumar are the biggest movers on the women’s tour, rising 85 spots to joint-299th following their runs to the last 16 of the Life Time City Women’s Open in June.
