Life is so strange. 20 years ago, 6 Sept 2006, the Worlds in Cairo, my first-ever visit.
I’m in my hotel near the Pyramids, the Meridien. Phone rings. It was Omar Elbolorossy. World Champion with the Egyptian Team, both junior and senior. Fluent French speaker. Famously clever and a hard worker. We meet; he shows me his academy in Wadi Degla – where we will play the World Women in 2014, famous for breaking the Squash Heart of all the Egyptians when our Butterfly Raneem missed out on her first world title. A young player at the time was in that academy, on court, working hard. Her name, Engy Elmandouh.
Cut to 20 years to the month later. I’m still in love with Egypt, Omar is the Tournament Mr Big, and Engy is a PSA Senior Events Executive, my saviour on so many events, and the kindest human being you can find… ‘God works’…
THANK GOD FOR RANEEM
Due to a little hiccup in the bookings, the Hotel didn’t have a room for my first two nights. I could have stayed in the room I’m renting in Maadi, but it’s a bit like commuting from Paris to Orleans every day! A good 90 minutes per day one way. And when you have 8 sessions of 4 matches at the same time on day one… So I asked Raneem El Welily if she would have me for a couple of nights. “We will be happy to welcome you” was the immediate answer.
What to say about her? World number one – she took over from Nicol David, first ever Egyptian women to become a world number one in any sport, world champion, full time mum of two boys (with no nannies, we don’t believe in nannies), part time coach for a few chosen friends… And an amazing amazing friend.
Staying with Raneem is the most beautiful child-raising experience you can find. Raneem has always been my role model, but she raised my esteem for her after I observed the development of her two boys, Murad and Shahir. Shahir goes to school, and Murad is a bit younger. But the love radiating from them is incredible. They welcomed me as if they knew me forever, as if I was family; they listen, they ask, they are interested. They want to communicate. I loved every moment I spent with them. And my Raneem of course.
Tarek Momen, the man of the house, was very busy with work, and I finally managed to see him for more than 15 seconds around 11pm as he ate his dry mango, which he weighed to make sure he wasn’t eating too much. A disciplined champion is always and forever a disciplined champion.
PROVING I’M A REAL BLONDE
On a single day, I’m made two booboos that could have been quite annoying.
One, I forgot that I was moving to the hotel at the end of Day 2 of the qualifiers. So poor Raneem had to pack my bag and make sure she sent it to the Crowne Plaza right after I arrived. And two, as I looked for my purse to get my money to pay for the Uber to bring the bag, I realised I’d left it at the club, not even in the press room, no, on an outside table, in everybody’s view.
Sigh. When you are blond, you are blond forever… So not only poor Raneem had to pay for the Uber, but I disturbed (again) Omar Elbo, telling him about my blondness. “Don’t worry, Fram, I’ll take care of it”. Within 3 minutes, he called me back. They didn’t have much difficulty finding me on the security cameras; there weren’t many blondes in the area, and they located the purse and turned it in to security.
I was so grateful I proposed to Omar to be his fourth wife, I’m not jealous, but he didn’t seem too keen on the idea, and he said he would come back to me. OF COURSE I’m kidding…
CROWNE PLAZA
To my knowledge, we never stayed at the hotel, about 500m from Giza Palace, where we stayed last time. And if I arrived a bit later than planned, Amina Shaaban from Event House Events kindly booked me a junior suite! As James Willstrop said a long time ago at a hotel reception in Kuwait, where he had to share a room while I got a jacuzzi suite, “WHY YOU????”
I have to say that really put me in a GREAT mood. Which I needed because, being autistic, when I have to change my routine during an event, I tend to panic and get extremely annoying for others. I mean, even more than normal.
I love everything in the hotel. I love the room, the bathroom, the bathtub, the room service – excellent food at an affordable price – and I LOVE the breakfasts; the personnel are extremely well trained, professional, and efficient. Hat to Mohamed who remembered my tea setup the next morning; bless him…
Love it love it love it.
AT THE CLUB
Let’s me be frank – am I ever anything else?? – Owest courts for a major squash competition are a bit of a challenge. The courts are all in a row, with extremely little circulating space, meaning that the photographers struggle not to disturb the players and each other, traffic issues while matches are going on, as we are not supposed to cross while rallies are going – although that’s a part that seems to be hard for the security guys to comprehend… Bless them. Not easy conditions for anybody.
Also, not having functioning Wi-Fi at the courts didn’t help my first two days… On top of the venue ones, the PSA ones, I had two different networks, Etisalat and Vodafone; nothing worked… But thank the Lord for Engy and Omar; they finally got the problem sorted by installing a special setup inside the courts. My third day was much, much easier thanks to everybody who worked hard to sort out the problem.
SPOTLIGHT ON MY REFS
What a pleasure to have Alex Hewiston back on the PSA Tour. I personally love the way he referees: his calm, people-handling, respect for the players, and, at the same time, a firm but conciliatory tone. The fact he is a preacher, and yet a fun guy to be around, is just the begining…
A biiiiig thank you to Waleed Yasen, a local ref who has a pretty interesting journey into squash. He has been picking up the refs from the hotel and back, and also drove me to Raneem’s on the first evening of the event. For which I am extremely grateful.
He discovered professional squash while he was working in Qatar. It was the 2017 Qatar Classic semis, Tarek Momen v Mohamed ElShorbagy. He ‘fell in love’ with our sport and started to become involved in the refereeing circuit when he moved back to Egypt.
A close friend of Tarek now – they work in the same field, the stock market – he is one of the refs to watch, in my opinion. His progression was made possible by his strong performances on the World Teams in Madinaty (2022) and at the World Juniors in BlackBall (2025)…
He is progressing in the WSO circuit, and we need more like him…
Memorable Moments of the Qualifs…
- Mohamed Gohar speaks about his coach Karim Ali Fathi,
- Mohamed Nasser had slept only 4 hours before his match coming from Brazil,
- Edwin Clain after a great match against Ben Smith,
- Yasshmita just back from Japan and the Asian Games (she is one of the 2 LL!),
- the Seif Rafayy and Edwin match, Joachim Chuah, 3 months on PSA Tour and already qualified after a Uber crash I kidyounot,
- and the 96m match between Ibrahim and Marwan A… Ibrahim about how Hesham El Attar advice changed the match...
Enjoy!
So, now, here comes the Big Guns… Stay Tuuuuuuuned…
