Hong Kong title clinches place for Kiwi King
By SEAN REUTHE
New Zealand’s Joelle King has qualified for the season-ending PSA World Tour Finals after she beat Egypt’s Raneem El Welily in Saturday’s Everbright Sun Hung Kai Hong Kong Squash Open final to lift her first ever PSA World Tour Platinum title.
The PSA World Tour Finals will take place next June and will feature both a men’s and women’s tournament. The reigning World Champions and all seven Platinum winners will qualify for the prestigious event, meaning King has joined U.S. Open champion El Welily in booking a coveted spot at the finals.
The other qualifying spots will go to the next highest-ranked players on the PSA World Tour Finals Leaderboard.
King moves up to third on the women’s leaderboard with 3,720 points, behind England’s Sarah-Jane Perry in second. El Welily, who will go to World No.1 on December 1, has 7,115 points to her name.
France’s Camille Serme drops a place to fourth, while current World No.1 Nour El Sherbini, World No.3 Nour El Tayeb, World No.9 Tesni Evans and World No.8 Nouran Gohar take the final spots inside the top eight.
Men’s Hong Kong Open winner Mohamed ElShorbagy stays in second place on the men’s leaderboard behind runner-up Ali Farag, whose title win at the Qatar Classic earlier this month saw him qualify automatically.
Qatar Classic finalist Simon Rösner comes next in third ahead of World No.4 Tarek Momen, World No.8 Paul Coll, World No.10 Mohamed Abouelghar, World No.9 Karim Abdel Gawad and World No.12 Diego Elias, who make up the rest of the top eight.
The next Platinum tournament will be the men’s CIB Black Ball Squash Open, which takes place in Cairo between December 3-9.
PSA World Tour Finals Leaderboard.
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