Crouin & Aboelkheir Win Career-Biggest Tour Titles At Open Squash Classic

Victor Crouin and Fayrouz Aboelkhier have won the Open Squash Classic 2025 titles - for both, their biggest career PSA Squash Tour titles - beating Leonel Cardenas and Nada Abbas respectively on finals day in New York.

Five days of breathtaking squash drew to a conclusion with two entertaining finals at Open Squash FiDi, where No.2 seed and crowd favourite Crouin went one better than in the event last year, when he finished as runner-up.

Prior to his success, though, was a women's final between second seed Aboelkheir and top seed Abbas, in what was a rematch of the Carol Weymuller Open final just across the East River in Brooklyn earlier this year.

Aboelkeheir came out on top that day and repeated the feat here in Downtown Manhattan, in a match that swung one way and then the other.

Abbas had never taken a game off Aboelkheir in their past PSA Tour encounters, and made the worst possible start in trying to change that here, losing the first six points of the match and the first game 11-4.

She then fell 5-0 behind in the second, with Aboelkheir reading the game exceptionally well and barely putting a foot wrong, but the No.1 seed found her rhythm and fought her way back into the contest.

From 7-3 down she won seven of the next eight points to bring up two match balls at 10-8, and while both of those came and went, she closed out the tiebreak 12-10 to bring herself level on the scoreboard.

It was Abbas who looked the fresher of the two players throughout game three, too, as she consistently looked to up the tempo of play, establishing a 7-3 lead.

But Aboelkheir was clinical towards the front of the court throughout, and this time it was she who made the comeback, dropping only one more point in the game to move 2/1 in front.

A fast start to game four brought the finish line within sight for the 19-year-old Alexandrian, and while Abbas erased an early deficit to level at 6-6, that would be as close as she would get to forcing a decider, with Aboelkheir - who was extremely calm and composed throughout - reeling off five points on the bounce to close out victory.

"I'm very happy," the teenager said after her fifth Tour title win.

"I think New York has been my favourite city. I've made a lot of great memories here and I love it. I'm so happy to win my second big title here.

"We all have those ups and downs during the game, but I'm happy that I managed to regain my focus and know how to stick to my plan more, and I'm so grateful for that."

There was not a spare seat to be had inside the venue as the men's finalists were welcomed onto court, and most of those watching were cheering on French No.1 Crouin, who has close ties with Open Squash and bears the club's name across his shirt.

He and Cardenas knew each other's games well coming into the contest, having faced off nine times in the past, with Crouin winning six of those.

Their last two meetings had lasted more than three hours in total, and the early exchanges of this encounter suggested we might be headed for another long battle, with both players showing an plenty of patience and precision.

It was Crouin, though, who was the more accurate with his shots, moving Cardenas around and putting away anything loose from the Mexican's racket.

An 11-5 success in game one set Crouin on his path to glory, and he followed that up with another win by the same scoreline in the second, bouncing around the court and feeding off the crowd's energy.

Cardenas, in contrast, had needed all five games to get past another Frenchman, Melvil Scianimanico, in the semi-finals, and that workload perhaps took its toll here.

Unsurprisingly, he continued to fight hard until the very end, but Crouin had too much on the day, both in terms of quality and energy, closing out game three in just eight minutes to get his hands on the trophy, going one better than in this event 12 months ago.

"It feels amazing," Crouin said on court after his win, the 21st Tour title of his career.

"It was one of the goals to win here at Open Squash after losing in the final last year, so it feels good.

"It was a long week, very exhausting with yesterday's match against (Eain) Yow, so I'm glad I got it done in three convincing games there today.

"I've got to thank Melvil, my fellow French player, for doing most of the work yesterday. Leonel was definitely a bit tired and I seized the opportunity and it was a good day today."