Squash has produced a generation of players, coaches and administrators whose careers and views shape the modern game. The profiles below summarise who these figures are, what they have achieved, and the perspectives they are known for, drawn from their documented careers and public interviews.
Ali Farag
Ali Farag is a four-time men's world individual champion, winning the title in 2018-19, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23. He spent 238 weeks at World No.1 between March 2019 and March 2025 and won 46 PSA Tour titles, sixth on the all-time men's list.
He reached the 2025 World Championship final in Chicago, losing to Mostafa Asal, and announced his retirement shortly afterwards in May 2025.
A Harvard graduate, Farag is widely known for competing with humility and integrity, and for speaking openly about how his faith and his family give his career meaning beyond titles.
Raneem El Welily
Raneem El Welily is a former World No.1 and the 2017-18 World Champion. She was the first Arab woman to be ranked No.1 in any sport and won 24 PSA titles across an 18-year career before retiring in 2020.
Camille Serme
Camille Serme of France reached a career-high of World No.2 and won 15 titles, including the British Open and the US Open, with a brief comeback adding a further title in the 2024-25 season.
El Welily and Serme, long-time friends and rivals, have reflected together on their careers since retiring, describing what they miss about competing on the big glass-court stages and how they have stayed involved with the tour through exhibitions.
Rodney Martin
Rodney Martin of Australia won the 1991 World Open, beating Jahangir Khan in the final after defeating Jansher Khan and Chris Dittmar earlier in the draw. He went on to a coaching career and works with world No.1 Nouran Gohar.
Martin has said that fierce rivalry at the top of the women's game is good for the sport, including Gohar's contests with players such as Hania El Hammamy. He has also spoken about Gohar's return to full health and how he expects her game to develop.
Mike Way
Mike Way is the head coach of squash at Harvard University, where he has led the program for more than 15 years. He has coached world No.1 Ali Farag and developed top college and professional players including Gina Kennedy and Victor Crouin.
Way is known for a coaching philosophy that values character as much as raw talent, and for an approach built over decades in the sport in both Canada and the United States.
Mostafa Asal
Mostafa Asal of Egypt, born in 2001, became the 2025 World Champion by beating Ali Farag in the Chicago final and reached World No.1. He is known for an explosive, athletic style and a large social-media following.
Asal has set out an ambition to grow squash's audience, telling Olympics.com that he is trying to grow the sport as much as he can because it can be like football or the NBA. He has pointed to several demands of the game as reasons it deserves wider attention:
- the speed of play;
- the footwork it requires;
- the endurance needed to last;
- the heavy training behind it.
Joel Makin
Joel Makin is Wales' number one and reached a career-high of World No.6. He is known for his physical conditioning and intensity on court, and for the grinding, attritional style that has carried him into the world's top ten.
Makin has spoken about the sacrifices and the change in mindset behind his rise, and about establishing a clear identity as a player.
Anahat Singh
Anahat Singh, born in 2008, is India's leading junior player. She first drew attention by winning the under-11 title at the British Junior Open in 2019 and has since won multiple tour titles and medals at Asian and junior world level.
Her mentor, former India No.1 Saurav Ghosal, has described challenging her to a forehand-only match, telling her to see if she could beat him, which exposed a weakness in that shot. Ghosal has said she absolutely hates to lose, and that the loss pushed her to fix her forehand and improve.
Farida Mohamed
Farida Mohamed is an Egyptian professional from Alexandria, nicknamed "The Bazooka" for her powerful hitting, who reached a career-high of World No.14. She followed her older sister Habiba Mohamed to Columbia University, where she played at number one for the team.
Farida has described Habiba as her role model and credited their late father with shaping her strength and ambition.
Tarek Momen
Tarek Momen of Egypt won the 2019 World Championship in Doha, beating Paul Coll in the final for his first major title. He and his wife Raneem El Welily, the 2017 women's champion, are the first married couple of world champions in squash history. He reached a career-high of World No.3.
Momen has spoken about the burnout he felt during a draining stretch of the season, saying he was completely spent, and about his goal of climbing back toward the top three and competing for another world title.
Andrew Shelley
Andrew Shelley is a long-serving squash administrator known as "Mr Squash." He worked in the sport from 1976 and held a series of senior roles across the game:
- CEO of the women's pro tour WISPA from 1994 to 2010, during which the tour grew substantially;
- chief executive of the World Squash Federation from 2010 until 2019;
- administrator of around 20 British Open championships;
- founder of the World Squash Library, created to preserve the sport's history.
He was awarded an MBE for services to squash.
