American ace soars to fifth in the World Series Finals rankings after great run at the ToC
By SEAN REUTHE
After an incredible week saw her ride the wave of fervent home support to reach a maiden World Series tournament final at the J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions in New York, American Amanda Sobhy has catapulted herself into contention to claim a coveted berth at the season-ending PSA Dubai World Series Finals.
Victory over Raneem El Welily and Nouran Gohar saw Sobhy through to her first major final and the 22-year-old, who lost the title decider to Egyptian Nour El Sherbini, has soared up the ‘Road To Dubai’ Standings to occupy fifth place in the rankings. The top eight players qualify for the season-ending PSA Dubai World Series Finals which take place in May.
With just two events left on the Women’s circuit, Sobhy knows another good performance at February’s Guggenheim Partners Windy City Open or March’s Allam British Open would see her through to compete at the finals for the very first time.
Elsewhere in the women’s standings, World No.1 Laura Massaro maintains a slender advantage over Nicol David atop the rankings, with both guaranteed a place in Dubai, while Indian duo Dipika Pallikal and Joshna Chinappa are alongside Nour El Tayeb and Hong Kong’s Annie Au in a tight battle to occupy the eighth berth currently held by El Welily.
In the Men’s Standings, Mohamed Elshorbagy opened up a commanding lead atop the rankings with victory in New York and now holds a 110-point advantage over Gregory Gaultier – with questions hanging over the Frenchman’s fitness after he suffered a painful ankle injury during his semi-final loss to Nick Matthew.
After reaching his first ever PSA World Series tournament semi-final, Mathieu Castagnet has moved up to sixth place, narrowly ahead of Germany’s Simon Rösner and Ryan Cuskelly, the Australian who currently occupies eighth place.
World No.5 Miguel Angel Rodriguez is narrowly outside top eight qualification while former World No.1 James Willstrop and 2014 World Series Finals champion Ramy Ashour find themselves a long way back in the standings and in desperate need of points as the World Series heads to Chicago for the Windy City Open.
PSA World Series Standings (January 2016):
Picture by STEVE LINE (www.squashpics.com) courtesy of PSA
Graphic courtesy of PSA