My worst loss, was last year in the British Open, when I lost first round to Kandra. It’s not so much the loss against Kandra than the period I was going through, a really bad period in my career.

I didn’t know what I was doing, where I was going, I was playing really badly. For six months, I couldn’t make a quarter of a Platinum, something that never happened in my career for that long. Yes, I had lost a quarter here and there. But not making a quarter for six months?? That was pretty hard for me.

And then that match. Tough. I didn’t know if I was going to come back, or if I was good enough to come back and challenge the top players again. It was definitely the worst moment to go through, but in a way, when you go through your worst, those moments become your finest hour…

Nobody knows, but I was actually thinking about retiring, or thinking about walking away from the game. I was in a very bad place mentally and that’s when I decided to give a call to Gregory Gaultier and ask for help.

I didn’t know what was coming. I didn’t know what was happening to me and he told me to come to Prague and we put a plan. If you told me then that two months later that I would be in the world champ final!!….

Greg, I owe him everything to get the hunger back for me the motivation, without him, I wouldn’t have dreamed to be here. So thank you so much, mate. Thanks for everything.

My best memory in squash, I think I would say, being with my brother in a world Champ final when we played the Final in 2017 in Manchester.

I think looking back at all my career so far, to know that we both were the only brothers in the history of the sport to be able to reach the final, play against each other in the biggest match of the whole year in front of our parents. I mean, I think that was a special moment for the whole family and I I do think that was one of the biggest and best moments of my squash career so far.

I would like people to always remember me as one of the toughest competitors that ever played the sport.

I do enjoy being known for being tough mentally on court, being a fighter, being a beast, as my nickname! Someone relentless on court, someone who was tough, someone who gave it everything every time he stepped on court. That’s how I would like to be remembered.

I’m not sure if I really have any regrets. For sure, there are situations in my life I definitely could have done better whether as a squash player or as a just a human being. I think we all can go back in time and think we could have done better in some certain situations.

But I always think like every situation. I’ve been through, I did it exactly what I was supposed to.

Whether I did right or wrong, I have enough faith in my life to know that every situation I go through is always for my own good. Everything I did in my life, I was just following the plan that was designed for me.

So I can say there were regrets, definitely situations which I’ve done differently if I could go back in time, but I can’t so I wouldn’t say I regret it. Whether even as a squash player, whether big matches I lost, whether big matches I won, whether big decisions that I’ve made in my life or I always think I have enough faith to believe that it all happened for my own good.

I say my proudest achievement is that I was able to stay at #1 for as long as I did, and now, that I am still in the race to reach that position again.

I was world number one in a generation that saw the likes of Nick Matthew, Greg Gaultier, Ramy Ashour and Shabana!  Then I was number one with the following generation, with Tarek Momen, Omar Mosaad, Simon Rosner.

Then with the Paul Coll Ali Farag, my brother and Karim Abdel Gawad generation, the third one. And I still in the fight to regain my number one status with an even younger generation that had Diego Elias and Mostafa Asal.

And I still got the chance to achieve it this season, becoming world number one again. So I’m proud that in every generation I went through, I was able to become the best player for a certain amount of time.

Obviously, there were times, the other players got the best out of me and they took me out of the world number one, but I when I retire, I could always say that I have achieved the world number one over different generations and that requires specific work ethics.

It requires changing constantly as a squash player, changing your game, your movement, you have to change and adapt all the time to different players, that’s the consistency that I’m really proud of in my career.

For now, I fixed myself a new challenge, to become world #1 on this current generation right now.  And I would love to do it for England as well, because when I was speaking to England Squash, it was one of the goals I wanted to achieve for them, achieving world #1 for them as well, I want to do it under the England T-shirt for sure.

So let’s see. You know, obviously the older you get, the harder it is, but I feel I’m playing well this season and then let’s see, you know, even if I can get there even for one more day, I’ll be really, really proud.