Ali Farag and Nour El Sherbini are top seeds in Cairo
By SEAN REUTHE – Squash Mad Correspondent
The world’s leading squash players will line up at Cairo’s Mall of Arabia for the third consecutive year when the 2020-21 CIB PSA World Tour Finals takes place between June 22-27.
Seeded first for the tournament will be the world number ones Ali Farag and Nour El Sherbini. To qualify for the CIB PSA World Tour Finals, players must have either finished in the top eight of the CIB Road to Egypt Standings, where points have been on offer at all PSA World Tour events during the 2020-21 season to date, or have won a PSA World Tour Platinum title.
Farag captured both the CIB Egyptian Open title and the Qatar Classic crown and finished top on the men’s CIB Road to Egypt Standings. The 29-year-old will be joined in Cairo by Fares Dessouky, reigning World Champion Tarek Momen, Paul Coll, defending champion Marwan ElShorbagy, El Gouna International victor Mohamed ElShorbagy, Joel Makin and Mostafa Asal.
El Sherbini finished at the summit of the women’s CIB Road to Egypt Standings after winning all three of the women’s Platinum tournaments so far this season, the CIB Egyptian Open, CIB Black Ball Open and El Gouna International.
Defending champion Hania El Hammamy, Nouran Gohar, Amanda Sobhy, Sarah-Jane Perry, Camille Serme, Joelle King and Salma Hany will all line up alongside El Sherbini later this month.
The CIB PSA World Tour Finals has a unique format compared to other PSA World Tour events. The eight men and eight women are split into two groups of four, with a round robin, best-of-three games format used over the first four days of the tournament.
The top two from each group qualify for the best of three semi-finals, with the winners then going on to face off in the title deciders, which will revert to the best-of-five games scoring used at most tournaments on the PSA World Tour.
All matches will be held at Cairo’s Mall of Arabia and fixtures will be streamed live on SQUASHTV (rest of world) and the official Facebook page of the PSA World Tour.
The semi-finals and finals will also be shown live on the channels of contracted broadcast partners.
CIB PSA World Tour Finals Entry List, Egypt, June 22-27.
Pictures and graphic courtesy of PSA