Nouran Gohar said she started her athletic life as a swimmer and rhythmic gymnast. She hated both, often sobbing through strict gymnastic training sessions that would last at least five hours.
She played handball, too, becoming good enough to be recruited for the Egyptian junior national team. But the day, at age 9, that she jumped on a squash court, just for fun with her father, fireworks figuratively exploded in the air.
“That day was the beginning of my career,” said Gohar, 27, speaking by phone during the British Open last month in Birmingham, England. “It was the first time I was really having fun in a sport.”
Gohar is now the top-ranked women’s squash player in the world. She has reached the final of the British Open seven times, securing her third championship last month. She has won the U.S. Open four times and captured the Professional Squash Association Women’s World Championship in 2024.
Another Egyptian, Nour El Sherbini, who first held a squash racket when she was 6, is ranked No. 2. With eight titles, she is tied with Nicol David from Malaysia for having won the most Women’s World Squash Championships.
Hania El Hammamy, the third-ranked player, and Amina Orfi, at No. 5, are also Egyptians who started young. Over the last decade, 19 of the 20 finalists at the world championships have been from Egypt. Players from the country have also won six women’s world team championships since 2008, including in 2024.
In the United States, college teams are peppered with Egyptian players. Three of the final four women’s teams at the College Squash Association Championships this past spring — Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and the eventual winner, Trinity College — all had Egyptian women playing in the No. 1 position.
“They have the most complete squash players I have ever witnessed,” said Jack Wyant, Penn’s director of squash and the women’s head coach. “They are extremely mentally tough because they have grown up in a cauldron of competition. The expectation is that if you can be the best in Egypt, you’ll be the best in the world.”
The country has been producing top squash talent ever since the 1930s, when British soldiers introduced the game. Today, there are more than 2,000 courts nationwide, many at upscale, government-sponsored clubs. Some children spend hours at the clubs, from afternoon through late evening, studying, eating meals and honing their skills. National tournaments often attract 300 children in the under-11 age division.
Only the American Olivia Weaver, at No. 4, has broken the Egyptian stranglehold on the top world rankings.
“When you go to a tournament and see the Egyptian flag, there is an added layer of respect and, to be honest, fear,” said Weaver, 29, who played college squash at Princeton before turning pro. “They train with an intensity you don’t see anywhere else. They’re so much more ruthless and professional. They train with the goal of being No. 1 in the world.”
Gohar knew that despite starting young, she had come late to the game. Many of her contemporaries had begun much earlier. They already knew the art of hitting “rails,” or balls that hug each side wall; “boasts,” shots in which the ball hits the side wall before the front; and “nicks,” where the ball dies when struck into a corner just above a tin line in the front of the glass-walled court.
“At 9, you should already be winning tournaments,” said Gohar, recalling how she had been so tiny and thin at that age that she looked more like a 6-year-old. “But I loved it, especially getting on the court and playing against myself. I’m a very structured, systematic person, and squash really appealed to me.”
Gohar caught up quickly. Her current coach, Zac Alexander of Australia, is stunned by her ability to muscle the ball.
“Because she was a smaller kid growing up, Nouran had to learn to hit the ball as hard as she could in order to compete,” he said. “Now it’s one of her main weapons.”
Interest in squash in the United States has grown over the last decade, but it still doesn’t approach that in Egypt.
“The culture of squash matters at a much higher level in Egypt than in every other country,” said Ned Edwards, a former world No. 2 and now executive director of the U.S. Squash Foundation. “The landscape there is drawing more and better athletes. The lock-in and intensity there is essential.”
Financial stability in professional squash still lags behind pro tennis. El Sherbini and Weaver said that only the top five women can make a viable living once they have paid for international travel, training and coaching expenses.
Prize money for men and women is equal at top pro events like the British Open, where the total purse this year was about $700,000, around the same amount that doubles champions shared at tennis’s French Open, which ran concurrently.
“It feels like everything I make goes back into my career,” said Weaver, who made $180,000 in prize money from playing in 15 pro events last year but supplemented that income with payouts from playing exhibitions and endorsement deals with Head rackets and Free People Movement clothing, as well as with private sponsorship.
Gohar’s Professional Squash Association prize money in 2024 was $395,000, more than that of any other man or woman on tour. Coco Gauff’s tennis prize money, by comparison, was $9.4 million last year.
Gohar also has several long-term sponsorship deals, including with an Egyptian real estate developer, an Egyptian bank and Red Bull energy drinks. But she has no clothing sponsor, so she buys squash outfits off the rack.
The enthusiasm for squash in Egypt is likely to explode when the sport joins the Olympics for the first time, in Los Angeles in 2028. The squash venue will be at Universal Studios, with courts erected on the “Back to the Future” film lot.
Sherbini, who is nicknamed Warrior Princess, said she might retire after the Olympics. Gohar and Weaver said they might, too. All three said an Olympic medal was the goal.
“The Olympics have kept me in the game,” Gohar said. “I feel like when you get to the pinnacle of the sport, you need to have something to keep the fire in you. For me, all eyes are on the Olympics.”
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