DOHA – “You just never know when the day is going to come.” So said Rachel Arnold as she celebrated her greatest scalp on Monday at the Qatar Squash Classic and hoped for a flurry of family messages after a torrid run this year.
The Malaysian 30-year-old ousted Nour ElSherbini in four and will now take on England’s Jasmine Hutton in the quarter-finals, a player (and friend) she was later coaching to victory over Gina Kennedy.
These were two clean, back-to-back women’s matches. So firstly let’s get the horror show and 53 decisions of Sunday’s all-Egyptian clash out of the way by reporting that there were only a combined 16 decisions in all. No traffic, fishing or theatrics. Just pure squash.
Back to worthy winners Arnold and Hutton. The two train together in Florida under Wael El Hindi and fitness told here, notably for Hutton whose balance and court coverage against seeded Kennedy played a vital hand in her reaching her second Platinum quarter-final. It came some 18 months after her first (when she beat Kennedy at the ToC).
Meanwhile, a decade after winning her first PSA World Tour title at the Malaysian Tour Squash XI on home soil – and two years after another career highlight, the China Open title – Arnold prevailed over former world No.1 ElSherbini, also 30, in quite the shock result.
Arnold is now in the last eight after a first win, she believed, over a top 10 player. Not bad for a player who has had four first round defeats in the big events in 2026.
A huge upset in Doha! 🤯
World No.26 Rachel Arnold stuns 8x World Champion Nour ElSherbini in the biggest win of her career to date! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/05tSPBDwRD
— PSA Squash Tour (@PSASquashTour) September 14, 2026
“My movement was good and I felt fit and confident in that aspect,” a slightly stunned Arnold said.
Arnold has been coached out of Florida by El Hindi for the last three years and she says the Egyptian has vastly improved her all-round game.
She benefits eating and sleeping well, the odd beetroot juice, along with meditation and breath work to help with her nervous system. She needed it in abundance against ElSherbini, who is more than capable of staging comebacks in the face of defeat.
But the Malaysian, younger sister of former pro Delia, held her nerve with attacking intent and tight volley drops in an edgy fourth. Her win was spurred by her backhand and for the fact that the last time ElSherbini failed to reach the quarter-finals of a PSA Tour event came at the Cleveland Classic in 2015.
“I have been getting hard luck messages from my family,” Arnold added of her year to date. Not now.
She was then back on court coaching Hutton in the all-British tussle as the Brightonian prevailed 11-8, 11-7, 11-5.
Apart from El Hindi, Hutton likes the stable of coaches she currently has, including boyfriend Charlie Lee and the great Nick Matthew.
She has just ended her partnership with S&C specialist Justin Russ over the summer, but not before Hutton credited him for the “graft” which has got her season off to a flier here.
“We have done a lot of work together to get balance and deep lunges. I don’t always get into those lunges, I tend to run through the ball a lot but as long as I can get through it and out quickly that’s what matters.”
That natural speed and strength was evident in this British national final rematch and in the second, 7-4 up, when Hutton scampered to all four corners. There was also a lovely cross court cut as she opened up five game balls.
She was always ahead in the third as Kennedy seemed to finally relax. But any mistake was rectified the next point, summed up at 9-4 with a deft backhand drop.
Should she reach the final she would become a top 10 player, but Arnold and then second seed Amina Orfi stand in the way. Hutton took a game off Orfi at the London Classic and admitted that, despite defeat, she took bundles of confidence from that opener. She is biding her time, trusting her game, while the signs currently look good for British squash.
“Gina is playing amazing as British No.1,” she added, “and I want to put my foot in the door and show my face a bit. The British team is great at the minute and everyone is knocking on the door.”