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.
World Junior Champion Mostafa Asal has broken into the top 10 of the PSA Men’s World Rankings for the first time after the 20-year-old rose three places to No.9 off the back of his title win at the CIB PSA World Tour Finals last week. Asal defeated World No.2 Mohamed ElShorbagy to lift his first major PSA title at Cairo’s Mall of Arabia to cap a week which also saw him beat World No.1 Ali Farag, World Champion Tarek Momen and defending champion Marwan ElShorbagy. Farag stays ahead of ElShorbagy, but the gap between them has been cut significantly, meaning that ElShorbagy can take the World No.1 spot from Farag at the PSA World Championships between July 14-22. If Farag fails to make it to the final, or ElShorbagy makes it to the final, then the World No.1 spot will certainly change hands on August 1. For now though, Farag has made it 20 months at World No.1, which means his total reign is now longer than English legend Nick Matthew, and he joins French veteran Gregory Gaultier in ninth place on the all-time longest reigning men’s World No.1 list. Momen stays at No.3, while Paul Coll (No.4) and Marwan ElShorbagy complete the top five. Karim Abdel Gawad stays at No.6 ahead of Fares Dessouky (No.7) and Diego Elias (No.8), while Welshman Joel Makin drops to No.10. Colombia’s Miguel Rodriguez drops out of the top 10 for the first time since May 2018, while Egypt’s Mohamed Abouelghar falls to No.12. France’s Gregoire Marche rises a place to a career-high No.13 ranking, with Saurav Ghosal going the other way to No.14.The rest of the top 20 is unchanged. Austria’s Stefan Moser is the biggest mover on the men’s tour after he moved up 193 places to No.515 following his run to the quarter-finals of the Salzburg Open in June. Compatriot Mathias Ebenberger reached the same stage and he is the second biggest mover, rising 190 spots to No.509. [jbutton color=”blue” size=”large” link=”rankings” FULL WORLD RANKINGSAsal Breaks Into Top 10 of Men’s World Rankings