Elshorbagy Rises To World No.2 by Nathan Clarke October 1, 2014 -After
an emphatic start to the 2014/15 PSA World Tour season in which he has
already claimed a hat-trick of tournaments including the prestigious
Hong Kong Squash Open, CIMB Malaysian Open and Abierto Mexicano de
Racquets titles, Egyptian Mohamed Elshorbagy has risen to a career-high
World No.2 in the October PSA World Tour Rankings.
The 22-year-old from
Alexandria, who is based in England, leaps above World Champion Nick
Matthew courtesy of his recent run of excellent form which included a
3-2 victory over World No.1 Gregory Gaultier in the final of the hong
Kong World Series event - while the Frenchman maintains his place atop
the rankings for a seventh consecutive month.
"Being the World No.2 is great and another step towards my ultimate goals," said Elshorbagy.
"However to be the
number two in the rankings has never been a goal for me. My sights are
set higher than that and I have a big chance to take Gregory Gaultier
off the top ranking at the US Open.
"He will have to do a
lot of work there to protect his ranking as I won't let that chance
slip away easily and I'm very hungry to keep improving."
Elshorbagy is just one
of four Egyptian who climb up the rankings in October, with his younger
brother Marwan joining Omar Mosaad and Karim Darwish in building on
their September rankings.
Marwan rises two
places to No.15 with Mossad up three places to No.11 while Darwish, who
dropped out of the top ten for the first time since 2007 in the
September rankings, returns to the elite list to occupy the No.10 slot
at the expense of compatriot Tarek Momen who falls three places to
No.12.
Further movement
inside the top ten sees China Open winner and Commonwealth Games silver
medalist James Willstrop rise one place to occupy the No.6 ranking with
fellow English Commonwealth Games competitor Daryl Selby matching his
career-best ranking of World No.9, which he last held in September 2010.
Elsewhere in the
rankings, Chinese player Junjie Wang is the biggest riser in October,
jumping an impressive 272 places to occupy the No.174 spot.
RANK NAME NATION POINTS UP/DOWN 1 Gregory Gaultier FRA 1549.000 = 2 Mohamed Elshorbagy EGY 1378.500 ↑1 3 Nick Matthew ENG 1368.500 ↓1 4 Ramy Ashour EGY 821.500 = 5 Amr Shabana EGY 810.000 = 6 James Willstrop ENG 715.500 ↑1 7 Borja Golan ESP 637.727 ↓1 8 Peter Barker ENG 513.636 = 9 Daryl Selby ENG 475.909 ↑1 10 Karim Darwish EGY 463.000 ↑1 11 Omar Mosaad EGY 451.818 ↑3 12 Tarek Momen EGY 448.636 ↓3 13 Simon Rösner GER 435.417 ↓1 14 Miguel Angel Rodriguez COL 426.500 ↓1 15 Marwan Elshorbagy EGY 358.636 ↑2 16 Lauren Jan Anjema NED 340.455 ↓1 17 Saurav Ghosal IND 294.091 ↓1 18 Karim Abdel Gawad EGY 292.727 = 19 Mathieu Castagnet FRA 283.636 = 20 Max Lee HKG 270.000
