Peruvian pushes up to seventh in the list
By ELLIE MAWSON – Squash Mad Correspondent

Peru’s World No.6 Diego Elias has moved into the top eight of the PSA World Tour Finals Leaderboard following his victory at the Troilus Gold Canada Cup last month.

Elias defeated Egypt’s Mohamed ElSherbini in the final in Toronto to win his first title of the season at the PSA World Tour Silver event and has now strengthened his position to qualify for the season-ending World Tour Finals as he moves up from 10th to seventh on the men’s standings.

Players can qualify for the World Tour Finals automatically by winning any of the PSA World Tour Platinum or World Championship events across the 2019-20 season, with seven players already confirmed in total.

Along with those that automatically qualify, the players that accumulate the most points from their results across the season, will take the other places, with eight men and eight women playing for the final title of the season at the World Tour Finals.

Already qualified on the men’s standings are J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions winner Mohamed ElShorbagy, World Champion Tarek Momen, FS Investments U.S. Open Squash Championships and Windy City Open presented by the Walter Family champion Ali Farag and CIB Egyptian Squash Open winner Karim Abdel Gawad.

In the women’s field, Egypt’s Nouran Gohar and Nour El Sherbini are automatically in, having won the U.S. Open and the CIB PSA Women’s World Championship and Windy City Open titles, respectively. France’s Camille Serme also confirmed her place with victory at January’s Tournament of Champions.

New Zealand’s Paul Coll, who reached his first PSA World Tour Platinum final at the Windy City Open but narrowly missed out to Farag, moves up a place to fourth with 9,080 points. Wales’ Joel Makin (No.6), Peru’s Elias (No.7) and Egypt’s Marwan ElShorbagy (8) complete the current top eight on the men’s leaderboard.

Germany’s Simon Rösner, India’s Saurav Ghosal and Egyptian pair Mazen Hesham and Fares Dessouky are all in contention for those final places.

In the women’s standings, World No.1 Raneem El Welily stays top with 8,575 points, despite not having won a Platinum event this season, with compatriot Nour El Tayeb is fourth with 7,600 points following her win at the Cleveland Classic in February.

The rest of the current top eight on the women’s standings is completed by England’s Sarah-Jane Perry (No.6), New Zealand’s Joelle King (No.7) and Egypt’s Hania El Hammamy (No.8).

US duo Amanda Sobhy and Olivia Blatchford Clyne, along with Egypt’s Salma Hany and India’s Joshna Chinappa are close in order behind El Hammamy for the top eight placings.

The next chance for players to automatically qualify for the season-ending PSA World Tour Finals 2019-20 will be at the CIB Black Ball Squash Open for the women, which will be held in Cairo, Egypt and takes place between March 8-14.

Following that, there is the El Gouna International Squash Open and the Allam British Open, two more chances for places to be sealed. 

PSA WORLD TOUR FINALS: ROAD TO EGYPT STANDINGS.

Picture and graphic courtesy of PSA