2019 witnessed two individual World Championships – first the combined event in Chicago, where Nour El Sherbini recaptured the women’s title, her third success, and Ali Farag became world champion for the first time, just a day after he’d become World #1 for the first time.
Farag’s was a short-lived reign as he was forced to miss the Men’s Worlds in Qatar in November for family reasons, where it was Tarek Momen who chose the perfect moment to win his first ‘major’ title – having lost out in a thrilling final in Chicago.
Just a couple of weeks earlier Sherbini had held on to the women’s title – on her 24th birthday, no less – in front of the Pyramids.
Why two events ?
Well, most World Champs are held towards the end of the year, but the Chicago event was held back and so became the “2018/19 season”. The “2019/20” season events took place in Cairo and Doha in the usual timeframe, and there won’t be any events held in 2020 since we’ll be back in Chicago for the “2020/21 season” in February 2021.
By then Nour will have been world champion for two years and Tarek will have held the title for 15 months.
Oh, and did we mention that all four finals were won by Egyptians … For now though, here’s a look back at this year’s four World Championship finals, plus SquashTV highlights.
February, Chicago :
[2] Nour El Sherbini (Egy) 3-1 [3] Nour El Tayeb (Egy) 11-6, 11-5, 10-12, 15-13 (57m)
[2] Ali Farag (Egy) 3-1 [4] Tarek Momen (Egy) 11-5, 11-13, 13-11, 11-3 (79m)
October, Cairo and Doha :
[2] Nour El Sherbini (Egy) 3-1 [1] Raneem El Welily (Egy) 11-4, 9-11, 11-5, 11-6 (41m)
[2] Tarek Momen (Egy) 3-0 [4] Paul Coll (Nzl) 11-8, 11-3, 11-4 (39m)
