Egypt Hosts Junior Squash because the Sport Nears Olympic Debut

As international consideration turns to Cairo, Egypt is getting ready to welcome the 2025 World Squash Junior Championships, a marquee occasion within the sport’s youth calendar. Starting 21 July, the match will collect high under-19 gamers from all over the world, with particular person matches slated by way of 26 July, adopted by the workforce competitors from 27 July to 1 August.

This yr’s match marks a milestone for Egypt, because the nation hosts the Boys’ World Junior Squash Championship for the primary time since 1996, and welcomes again the Ladies’ Championship after a 22-year absence, final held on dwelling soil in 2003.

On 7 July, the occasion’s gamers, seedings, and attracts had been introduced. 13 Egyptians will compete alongside 234 high under-19 gamers from dozens of nations, together with China, New Zealand, England, France, the USA, Germany, India, Brazil, and extra.

The match takes place at New Cairo’s Black Ball Sporting Membership, dwelling to 16 glass-backed courts, the largest squash court docket complicated in Egypt, geared up for worldwide broadcast and viewers seating. It begins with singles matches, that includes a 128-player knockout format and a triple plate comfort system to make sure all opponents get a number of matches. Later, the occasion shifts to high-stakes workforce competitors amongst nations.

Egypt’s choice follows a sequence of great accomplishments in junior competitors. Through the earlier yr’s championships held in Houston, Egyptian gamers Mohamed Zakaria and Amina Orfi emerged because the champions within the males’s and girls’s classes, respectively. Their victories contributed to Egypt securing each the person and workforce titles within the males’s and girls’s divisions, attaining full dominance throughout the board.

Orfi’s win, already a three-time world champion and at present ranked No.5 within the girls’s senior world rankings, prolonged the nation’s girls’s tally to 16. Zakaria, who made historical past as the youngest ever males’s junior champion final summer time, secured Egypt’s fifteenth males’s title.

Egyptian hopes will relaxation closely on high seeds and defending champions Orfi and Zakaria. Their major challengers, India’s Anahat Singh, France’s Lauren Baltayan, and Korea’s Jooyoung Na, every carry a definite and aggressive edge to the match.

Officers are candid concerning the match’s strategic significance. Beneath the management of President Amina El-Trabelsi, the Egyptian Squash Federation views the occasion as a chance to inspire future generations and strengthen Egypt’s place as a central place for world-class squash expertise.

“Bringing this championship again to Egypt after many years reaffirms our dedication to youth improvement and worldwide excellence,” El-Trabelsi stated in an official assertion. “Our younger athletes proceed to encourage, and we’re honored to host the world on our courts.”

Anticipation surrounding this championship is heightened by squash’s upcoming debut on the 2028 Olympic Video games in Los Angeles (LA28). Athlete performances and visibility on the 2025 World Squash Junior Championships are straight tied to preparations for the game’s first Olympic introduction. With the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) confirming a restricted draw of solely 16 gamers per gender for LA28, the street to qualification guarantees to be intensely aggressive and extremely selective.

With Olympic berths to be decided by way of world rankings and choose continental championships, sturdy showings on the World Junior Championships provide rising gamers an opportunity to earn useful rating factors and significant worldwide match expertise. These performances function a stepping stone to senior-level PSA occasions, which can straight influence Olympic qualification.

Because the junior circuit grows extra consequential, the 2025 World Junior Championships will unfold underneath heightened stakes and sharper focus than in years previous.