Mostafa Asal and Hania El Hammamy (Photo PSA)
Defending champions Mostafa Asal and Hania El Hammamy return as top seeds in their respective draws at the Egyptian Open squash championships, with El Hammamy looking to bounce back from her Qatar Classic final defeat to Amina Orfi, which saw the 26-year-old lose her World No.1 ranking.
The Egyptian Open returns to Cairo, with 96 of the world’s best players arriving in search of the first Diamond-level titles of the PSA Squash Tour season.
The Egyptian Open will once again provide one of the most spectacular settings on the PSA Squash Tour, with an all-glass court set against the iconic Great Pyramids of Giza. The glass court will be used from the quarter-finals onwards, whilst the earlier rounds will be hosted at O West.
Egypt’s El Hammamy, a two-time champion at the event, has been named in the same half of the draw as No.4 seed Sivasangari Subramaniam, with the pair seeded to deliver a repeat of their thrilling Qatar Classic semi-final. In Doha, it was El Hammamy who edged out the Malaysian No.1 in an epic fifth game.
Sivasangari, meanwhile, will arrive in Cairo full of confidence after confirming herself as a future Olympian by winning the 2026 Asian Games in the last fortnight.
In the bottom half of the draw lies No.2 seed Orfi, who last season became the youngest women’s World Champion and youngest women’s British Open champion in history, etching her name into squash history. The 19-year-old has picked up where she left off at the start of this campaign, recording back-to-back title wins at the London Classic and Qatar Classic and very much looking like the player to beat on the women’s tour.
Two-time champion Nour ElSherbini is one of several dangers to the top two seeds. The eight-time World Champion captured the title in 2020 and 2024, but crashed out in the quarter-finals last season, losing to Fayrouz Aboelkheir.
ElSherbini also suffered a shock defeat in her first event of this season at the Qatar Classic, losing to Rachel Arnold in the second round – a loss which meant she didn’t reach a major quarter-final for the first time in almost 12 years. The Egyptian has been named in the same half of the draw as Orfi.
Dangers lurk elsewhere further back in the seedings, with Satomi Watanabe the No.5 seed, former World No.1 Nouran Gohar No.6 seed, recent Swedish Open champion Fayrouz Aboelkheir No.7 seed, and Georgina Kennedy the No.8 seed.
Meanwhile, in the men’s event, Mostafa Asal will look to continue his dominance from last season and bid to claim a third consecutive Egyptian Open title. The reigning World Champion always relishes the opportunity to compete on home soil, losing only once in his last 29 outings in Egypt. Asal has won five titles in 2026 and will be determined to win a sixth and continue his unbeaten start to the season.
The last player to beat Asal in Egypt was former World Champion and No.2 seed Diego Elias. The Peruvian beat the World No.1 in the El Gouna International semi-finals before going on to win the title.
Despite this, Elias arrives in Cairo with question marks around his game after an upset defeat to Timothy Brownell in the opening round of the Qatar Classic.
Elias finds himself in the same half of the draw as World No.2 and No.2 seed Paul Coll. After a trophy-laden 2025/26 season which included six title wins, Coll kick-started this campaign by defending his London Classic title before falling in the semi-finals of the Qatar Classic to Victor Crouin.
2019 champion Karim Gawad is joined by World Junior Champion Mohamad Zakaria and European trio Victor Crouin, Joel Makin and Marwan ElShorbagy as the remaining seeds, all capable of causing difficulties for the top three seeds if they find their best squash.
