Harrow’s Alan Clyne Retires at Malaysian Open
Alan Clyne had to pull out injured in the second qualifying round at the $52K Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur, due to an ankle injury that meant that he couldn’t lunge towards the ball – AC quote “which is fairly important in squash!”
Alan tweeted that his ankle had been getting more and more sore each day he’d been away so it was immediately obvious that he would not be able to continue in his match against Australian Ryan Cuskelly (PSA No.#43) and he retired after just 7 minutes.
Alan’s quick retirement should help to minimise any long-term injury as he looks towards the Commonwealth Games in India later this year.
To follow Alan on Twitter see @Clynesquash (or to follow me see @BroadberrySport)
Harrow’s Amanda Sobhy Wins World Junior Title in Cologne
The USA’s (and Harrow’s) Amanda Sobhy has won the 2010 World Junior Title in Cologne and is the first ever American to win the tournament.
The 17 year old beat off a challange from Egypt’s Nour El Tayeb to win 3/11, 11/7, 11/6, 11/7 in the final and also broke the 7 year Egyption strangle hold of this prestigious event.
In the semi-final Amanda beat Nour El Sherbini (the No.1 seed) 3 games to 0, when she was just 16 and then the very next day she won the final on her 17th birthday!
Nick Matthew’s (the World No.1) has added his congratulations to all the tributes and he tweeted that he hopes that the profile of the sport in the US will benefit from Amanda’s high profile victory. 
So see more details of the tournament click here.
Why not follow Nick Matthew (or Broadberrysport) on Twitter.
Pic right is Amanda and her family (and her Harrow Revere racket).
West Squash AGM Asks All Member Clubs to Affiliate to ‘Scottish Squash’
In a historic AGM last night the West of Scotland Squash Clubs voted to make affiliation to Scottish Squash compulsory to all its members (just 5 West clubs affiliate at present).
With a majority of 80% of the votes ‘for’ the motion (50 votes to 13) this new proposal will soon be taken to the Scottish Squash AGM to ratify the new membership proposal, before this new deal is finalised.
The same motion, at a West Squash EGM three years ago failed, but only by the narrowest of margins; leading one pro-voter to comment that “We hadn’t lost the vote we were just 0-1 down in the match!”.
Last nights debate was reported to be a ‘lively affair’ with those opposing the motion putting their view in the strongest terms and warning that smaller clubs could go out of business if they are made to find more money (as happened 15+ years ago when West Squash took the requirement of compulsory affiliation out of their constitution).
However those supporting the motion didn’t think that this would happen; and the out-going West President (Henry Reid) was confident that both West and Scottish Squash could work with individual clubs to help them through any difficulties.
(Currently Newlands, David Lloyd Renfrew, Western, Strathgryffe and Nunholm in Dumfries are the five West clubs that choose to affiliate).
Harrow’s Alan Clyne Wins the 2010 PSA Kent Open
Alan Clyne picked up another title this weekend as he won the inaugural $10K PSA Kent Open in Maidstone.
Alan probably thought he would be facing No.#3 seed John Rooney in the final, but the Irishman had to pull out after a Chinese meal gave him food poisoning and this meant he had to concede the semi-final match to his opponent Jonny Hartford.
The final was dominated by Alan with a 3-0 victory in just 35 minutes. To see a full report of the match click here.
2010 Sky Squash Open in Cairo
Nick Matthews beat Karim Darwish to win the final of the $150K Sky Open in Cairo; and the points he gained from winning this tournament also meant that Nick made is to his first ever PSA World No.1 ranking in and his 2nd Super Series win in a row with the 3-1 victory over Karim in just over an hours squash.
Nick is the first Brit since 2004 to take the PSA top spot and an unbeaten 28 match run has got him to this highlight of his career. It’s a fabulous effort to break the domination of the Egyptians (and the French) and Nick paid tribute to his opponent by saying “I was inspired tonight by what Karim did in Saudi and that drove me to play as if my life was on it” which was a reference to when Karim Darwish got to World Number one spot before reaching the finals of the PSA Saudi International Tournament, but then went on to win it anyway.
For more information and the draw click here. 
Alan Clyne in PSL Winning Team
Harrow’s Alan Clyne was part of the PSL (Premier Squash League’s) winning team last week as he beat Scott Handley in 5 games to take his team (Surrey H&R) to a 3-2 win against Esporta Oxford.
Alan, who is now at an all time high of No.62 in the PSA World Rankings, came from 7-10 (match point) down in the 5th against a very experienced opponent in Scott Handley and said afterwards that ”I though it was going to be tough, but I didn’t want it to be that tough!”.
Congratulations to Alan on another milestone in his career.
If you’d like to see more details of the final please click here.
P.S.A. Q&A (just for fun)
To see some lighthearted Q&A’s from the top squash players in the world click here!
West Presentation Evening
The West Squash End of Season Dinner and Presentation Night was held this weekend at David Lloyd in Renfrew and if you’d like to see the photos of the evening please click here.
Squash Exhibition for Charity
Edinburgh Squash Club will host an star-studded exhibition night of squash on May 8th featuring James Willstrop, Alex Gough and Vanessa Atkinson all in aid of ‘The Prostate Cancer Charity’.
James is PSA World Ranked No.5 and Vanessa is currently W.I.S.P.A. World Ranked No.13 (and Alex Gough was also top 5 in the world and is now the P.S.A. C.E.O. but is still renound for his ‘antics’ on – and off – the court!!)
And the festival of squash is being run by a former Scottish Internationalist, Lisa McKenna in memory of her father Brian.
Tickets are available from Edinburgh Squash Club – details here and the evening will be topped off with a live band and an auction (you can bid at Lisa’s website, details here)
Harrow’s Chris Leiper is Awarded ‘Peter Nicol Junior Player of the Year’
Harrow’s Chris Leiper won the 2009/10 ’Peter Nicol Grampian Junior Player of the Year’ award this season and not only that but Peter was on hand to present the trophy in person.
Chris has had many successes this season including a top 3 finish in the Under 17s at the Welsh Junior Open , top 3 in the Under 17s Scottish Nationals (both events were European Grand Prix event) and Chris has been selected to represent Scotland at No.1 for the under 17s European Team Tournament this May in Prague.
All this and he’s Ranked at number 2 in Scotland for the under 17s. Congratulations Chris on a fantastic year’s squash.
