The principal protagonists here for the 2012 Showdown are squash’s new major rivals. A head to head sport, as is squash, always seems to blossom when it generates a classic rivalry - such as was the Nicol - Power pairing in our sport; the Yankees - Red Sox in baseball; Federer - Nadal in tennis (now seemingly Nadal - Djokovic) and so on.
Ramy Ashour and Nick Matthew promise to provide squash fans around the world with many of the great moments of the game for some time to come. In their 13 meetings up to time of writing, it was almost all even with Ramy marginally ahed 7 matches to 6.
They split their first two meetings of 2011 with Ramy winning the Tournament of Champions in New York in January and Nick returning the favor with his win in the North American Championships a month later.
Some still tend to think of Ramy Ashour as that sensational upstart - the rookie surprising his ‘elders’ and squash fans in every tournament. The kid who parlayed a pair of World Junior titles into virtually instant stardom on the PSA Tour - No. 2 at 19 and No. 1 at 22 - a remarkable rush to the top.
But he’s 24 now - no wet-behind-the-ears kid. He’s an established star. In the 10 ranking events he played last year he was in the final in eight of them, and in the semifinal of another. He won four PSA ranking tournaments along with the 2010 Egyptian Nationals (a mighty tough event to win) plus the always competitive Hurghada International.
He had two more trophies on his shelf by May this year as his 2011 campaign picked up where 2010 left off. He captured the highly-rated Tournament of Champions in New York in January for the second time and the 2011 edition of the Hurghada International.
This exciting player is a silverware magnet. Almost all of the sport’s most significant trophis have his name on them already - starting the that pair of World Junior prizes - right on to the 2008 World Open - only the second player in squash history to win both the junior and ‘senior world tittles. Not bad at 24 - and the impressive certainty is - while he already 22 Cups to his credit - there’ll be lots more to come.
