Hania El Hammamy (Photo PSA)
Egypt’s Hania El Hammamy has always shown the potential to be a World No.1 and today it became official.
After winning the first three major events of the 2025-26 PSA Squash Tour season in Giza, Doha and Philadelphia, El Hammamy only needed to play her opening match at the China Open 2025 to guarantee top spot.
The 25-year-old was the only member of the ‘The Big 3’ – a group featuring El Hammamy, Nouran Gohar and Nour ElSherbini – that was yet to hold the World No.1 position. But that was all about to change. We caught up with the new World No.1 in Shanghai to discuss her feelings upon achieving one of her childhood dreams, her rivals and how she plans to manage the new role.
“It’s honestly so hard for me to put this into words, me becoming World No.1” said El Hammamy.
“This has always been the dream for me since I was a kid. It feels surreal. I’ve worked so hard to be here right now and to get to this point feels incredibly rewarding at the moment.
“I think I’ve always had it within me, I’ve always known I have the potential and I have always had so much confidence in myself. It wasn’t alway a great mindset to have – I got stuck for a few years. I expected so much from myself and I think that stopped me from going forward. In the past 18 months I’ve changed my mindset a bit and started to talk to myself differently. I was always reaching the semis and some finals but I wasn’t converting, Nouran [Gohar] and Nour [ElSherbini] were doing that. I had to make decisions to not put pressure on myself and see the losses as learning opportunities to come back and convert them into wins.
“I have been teased by getting wins against them periodically – so getting those wins makes me think that I should be the World No.1 at different times, but squash and sport don’t work like that. I sometimes thought it wasn’t fair, but it is totally fair, I needed to become a complete player, I thought that I was but actually I wasn’t. I had to go through all the losses to realise this and that’s shaped me as an athlete today.”
El Hammamy has been nearly impenetrable so far this season, claiming all three major titles and boasting a 17-match win streak, which was only recently ended by Satomi Watanabe in China last week. Gohar’s absence from tour due to pregnancy has certainly played its part in El Hammamy’s dominant start to the season. So has the inconsistent form of 8x World Champion ElSherbini.
“ElSherbini can just turn things around in the blink of an eye and she will be back. I’m sure she’ll be away getting ready for Hong Kong right now. Gohar is out for now, but Amina [Orfi] has sort of replaced her, she’s featuring in all the semis and finals and is a contender. Olivia [Weaver] is there too now.
“I would love to have Nouran competing now too. I know people think that we don’t like each other, but it’s not like that, it’s different. She made me a different athlete and a different person and she made me change to a better person in general. Our matches were more intense than any other matches. I have huge respect for the intensity, regardless of the way the result goes. I would have loved to have played against her a few more times on my route to World No.1. But I’m sure she’ll be back and hopefully as strong, if not stronger than she was before. I’m sure it will be exciting.”
El Hammamy’s coaching team consists of a partnership between two former World No.1s in Laura Massaro and Karim Darwish. Massaro, along with husband Danny, have been a driving force in El Hammamy’s mindset and technique, whilst Darwish is a regular on-court presence for the new World No.1. Both play very important roles for El Hammamy, something that isn’t lost on the 25-year-old.
“Karim [Darwish] and Laura [Massaro] both think that the way I was playing at the start of the season was already World No.1 quality, so that’s all I want to focus on. It takes the pressure off the ranking when I just focus on the performance and getting better everyday. As a female, you have lots of emotions coming through all the time, a lot to deal with, and having Laura there with me will help so much. She can also give me her experience of why she struggled with being World No.1. Karim was also a World No.1, so he can help too and I’m combining both, which is great. It’s been working so well with both there, and I have great faith in us as a team.
“The first time I called myself World No.1 was a few days ago. Laura called me before my first match in China and wanted me to say it out loud to myself. I haven’t had a chance to celebrate, I will do it when I get home [from China]. All my friends and family are waiting for me to come back. Getting to No.1 is just a milestone, not the finished article. The goal now is to keep pushing and keep improving. There’s obviously still a lot I want to tick off in terms of titles that I want to win and I also obviously want to be a World No.1 for a long time in my career.”
El Hammamy’s next event will see her try and claim a third Hong Kong Open title at the start of December.
