Crouin Topples Asal At Silicon Valley Open To Claim Biggest Win Of Career

World No.9 Victor Crouin claimed the biggest win of his career when he toppled world No.1 Mostafa Asal in a thrilling five-game semi-final at the Silicon Valley Open 2025 presented by Oracle NetSuite in Redwood City, USA.

The French No.1 delivered a stunning performance to overcome the current World Champion by an 11-8, 6-11, 11-5, 7-11, 11-8 scoreline after 94 minutes of dramatic play, joining Karim Gawad, Olivia Weaver, and Sivasangari Subramaniam in the finals of the Gold-level event.

Right from the start, the in-form No.5 seed Crouin struck a perfectly balanced game plan, taking the ball early on the 'T' and hitting with a width which limited the attacking options of top seed Asal.

The pair traded games into a blockbuster 26-minute fifth game, in which both players became increasingly edgy as the stakes continued to rise. It was Crouin, though, who managed to pull away at just the right time, moving from 8-8 to victory with three unanswered points.

After the match, Crouin said: "I'm just delighted. Mostafa is the world No.1, so it's the biggest challenge and I just took him out in five games for the first time. So obviously I'm over the moon and I got quite emotional on court because it's a lot of hard work to try and get to that level.

"I've been working so hard back at home, and it's great to get a result like this one."

Crouin will face No.2 seed Karim Gawad in the title decider after the Egyptian continued his flawless progression through the draw with an 11-8, 11-7, 11-5 victory over the unseeded compatriot Kareem El Torkey.

Gawad, who is yet to drop a game this week at Squash Zone, delivered yet another superb display packed with trademark attacking flair to advance past the first-time Gold-level semi-finalist after just 28 minutes of play.

Meanwhile, in the other draw, US No.1 Weaver and Malaysian No.1 Sivasangari will contest the women's final after the pair claimed comprehensive victories over British No.1 Georgina Kennedy and world No.15 Salma Hany, respectively.

Defending champion Weaver looked in clinical form throughout her 27 minutes on court in California as she defeated training partner Kennedy 11-5, 11-3, 11-4.

It was the relentless accuracy of Weaver that proved crucial to her victory, with the world No.5 finding an immaculate line and length on the all-glass court to extend her winning streak at the event to seven matches.

"Gina is one of my closest friends on tour and it's always difficult playing one of your friends on tour," Weaver said after the match. "Obviously, when we're training together as well [with coach Rod Martin], it makes it harder - we played three practice matches last week and we know each other's games very well.

"I think we were both just out here trying to play our best squash and I'm just really happy to get through to the final in three games."

In the other women's semi-final, No.3 seed Sivasangari blitzed her way past No.7 seed Salma Hany by an 11-3, 11-9, 11-5 scoreline to reach her first final of the 2025/26 PSA Squash Tour season.

The world No.8 picked up where she left off from her quarter-final victory over the USA's Amanda Sobhy, firing winners into the front two corners with regularity and using smart angles to disrupt the movement of an out-of-sorts Hany.