Tenth Month At No1 For Ramy Ashour

1 Oct 2013

Egypt's Ramy Ashour moves into his tenth successive month as world number one, according to the new October Dunlop PSA Men's World Squash Rankings published today by the Professional Squash Association.

Ashour, who celebrated his 26th birthday yesterday in San Francisco where he is competing in the PSA International 70 NetSuite Open, is enjoying the best run of his career - unbeaten now in 44 matches in a row and boasting title triumphs in the last eight Tour events in which he has competed.

Gregory Gaultier has strengthened his grip on second place in the new list after retaining the PSA International 70 Abierto Mexicano de Raquetas last month in Mexico. The success marked up the Frenchman's 24th title on the Tour since winning his first exactly 12 years before.

Englishmen James Willstrop and Nick Matthew hold onto third and fourth places, respectively, with Egypt's Karim Darwish at No5.

Despite title successes in both the Colombian Open in August and last month's Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur, England's Peter Barker remains in seventh place - behind sixth-placed Mohamed Elshorbagy, the 22-year-old Egyptian who finished as runner-up to Gaultier in Mexico.

After four months just outside the top ten, Egypt's Omar Mosaad moves back to No10 to join four fellow countrymen with single-figure rankings.

India's Saurav Ghosal has reason to celebrate after rising to a career-high world No17 ranking. Since becoming the highest-ranked Indian of all-time some three years ago, the 27-year-old from Kolkata has made steady progress on the Tour, winning five titles from eight final appearances.

A notable achievement just outside the top 20 is made by Chris Simpson, the Guernsey-born 26-year-old who celebrates a best-ever No21 ranking. Simpson reached the Malaysian Open semi-finals unseeded and is now the fifth highest-ranked Englishman for the first time.

October 2013 top 20 (inc. points average):

1 [1] Ramy Ashour EGY 1,638
2 [2] Gregory Gaultier FRA 1,168
3 [3] James Willstrop ENG 902
4 [4] Nick Matthew ENG 854
5 [5] Karim Darwish EGY 705
6 [6] Mohamed Elshorbagy EGY 697
7 [7] Peter Barker ENG 605
8 [8] Amr Shabana EGY 514
9 [9] Borja Golan ESP 491
10 [11] Omar Mosaad EGY 400
11 [10] Tarek Momen EGY 389
12 [12] Simon Rosner GER 331
13 [14] Cameron Pilley AUS 329
14 [13] Daryl Selby ENG 318
15 [15] Alister Walker BOT 294
16 [16] Miguel Angel Rodriguez COL 274
17 [19] Saurav Ghosal IND 263
18 [18] Laurens Jan Anjema NED 262
19 [17] Stephen Coppinger RSA 261
20 [20] Karim Abdel Gawad EGY 251

For full list - see www.psaworldtour.com