Dubai: Mohammad Al Shorbagy has set his sights on becoming the longest running world No. 1 in squash after retaining his PSA World Series Finals title at Emirates Golf Club on Saturday.
With his 3-1 win over fellow Egyptian Ali Farag in the final (9-11, 11-3, 11-9, 11-8), the 27-year-old, who has already been World No. 1 for 31 months, will now overtake Amr Shabana’s Egyptian record of 33 months at the top.
After the off-season, he will then sit fifth in the all-time longest reigning World No. 1 list behind Australia’s Geoff Hunt (59 months), England’s Peter Nicol (60), and the legendary Pakistan duo of Jahanghir Khan (94) and Jansher Khan (97).
“I’m still 27 and hopefully, I still have a few more years in this sport,” he said. “There are many records I want to break and right now I’m focusing on staying World No. 1 for as long as I can.
“This is my 31st month as world No. 1 and Shabana was 33, so I’m going to pass that because we’re going to be inactive until next season. So now I’m the Egyptian with the most months at number one and that’s one thing I wanted to pass.
“The next one will be Geoff Hunt, Peter Nicol, I want to get that and after I get that it will be Jansher and Jahanghir, so let’s see.
“The person you challenge is yourself not anyone else, I want to be better than the person I was yesterday. As long as I wake up tomorrow and think that then I’ve achieved my dreams even if it means I’ve slipped back to World No. 2.”
World No. 2 Farag had the better of Al Shorbagy in the first game pulling ahead from 6-6 to win 11-9 but Al Shorbagy blitzed the second 11-3, and the two tussled for a tight third with Shorbagy eventually winning it 11-9. Al Shorbagy then came back from 6-4 down to win the fourth 11-8.
“He’s a great player,” Al Shorbagy said of Farag. “We’ve been world No. 1 and world No. 2 now for a while and we deserve to be the best two in the world this season. I know he’s going to be working very hard for me next season and I’m going to be working very hard for him. That’s how we’ll improve each other and it would be nice to create a great rivalry with him now.
“Ending the season on a high is great but as I said at the beginning of the tournament, it’s just a step towards achieving the main goal at the end of my career,” he said in reference to an earlier interview to Gulf News at the beginning of the week about his quest for greatness.
“I’ve just spoken to my coach and the first thing I told him was I need to work on this and that for next season. The first thing is not to celebrate but to focus on what’s next.
“That’s what I’ll always look for, I’ll look ahead. This is in the past now, so let’s focus on the next one.”
