Palmer, Power, Shahid Surge in Rankings

April 1, 2005 by Howard Harding © 2004
match sequence © 2004 Debra Tessier

[top Americas players]

Thierry Lincou (r) retains #1 and Anthony Ricketts falls to 6th into April '05. photo © 2005 Fritz Borchert

While France's Thierry Lincou was able to retain the No1 position in the new April PSA Men's World Squash Rankings, announced today (31 March) by the Professional Squash Association, Australia's David Palmer leapfrogs Englishman Lee Beachill to reclaim the second place.

Palmer, 28, from Lithgow in New South Wales, began his 2005 PSA Tour campaign in fine style - reaching the semi-finals of the Bear Stearns Tournament of Champions in New York in February, then this month collecting the Sheikha Al Saad Kuwait Open title for the first time after beating Beachill in the semi-finals and Peter Nicol in the final.

Thierry Lincou, a semi-finalist in Kuwait, celebrates his 29th birthday on Saturday (2 April) having extended his world No1 reign to four consecutive months since January.

Englishman Nicol - like Beachill and Palmer, a former world No1 - holds onto fourth place in the new list, ahead of Egypt's Amr Shabana who stays at No5.

Canada's Jonathon Power moves up to six, overtaking Australian Anthony Ricketts who slips to seven. Englishmen James Willstrop and Nick Matthew also swap places, with Willstrop moving from nine to eight.

Lower in the list, Shahid Zaman consolidates his status as the highest-ranked Pakistani by leaping five places to a career-high No15. Shahid, born in Quetta but recently located to Nottingham in England, claimed his second PSA title of the year against the seedings when he won the COAS International crown in his home country at the beginning of March.

1 [1] Thierry Lincou FRA
2 [3] David Palmer AUS
3 [2] Lee Beachill ENG
4 [4] Peter Nicol ENG
5 [5] Amr Shabana EGY
6 [7] Jonathon Power CAN
7 [6] Anthony Ricketts AUS
8 [9] James Willstrop ENG
9 [8] Nick Matthew ENG
10 [10] Gregory Gaultier FRA
11 [11] John White SCO
12 [13] Karim Darwish EGY
13 [14] Graham Ryding CAN
14 [12] Joseph Kneipp AUS
15 [20] Shahid Zaman PAK
16 [15] Adrian Grant ENG
17 [16] Ong Beng Hee MAS
18 [17] Mohd Azlan Iskandar MAS
19 [18] Mohammed Abbas EGY
20 [19] Dan Jenson AUS

[complete rankings for April]

Other Players from the Americas in the top 100 (Apri 1 2005):

42 (43) Shahier Razik CAN
50 (50) Matthew Giuffre CAN
55 (56) Eric Galvez MEX
71 (75) Viktor Berg CAN
72 (70) Rafael Alarcon BRA
80 (79) Ian Power USA
84 (68) Nick Kyme BER
87 (81) Shawn DeLierre CAN
81 (82) David Phillips CAN
90 (90) Kumail Mehmood USA
94 (93) Christoper Gordon USA

and the other top Americans:

102 (100) Beau River USA
115 (126) Julian Illingworth USA
118 (132) Michael Puertas
126 (122) Dylan Patterson USA
127 (123) Patrick Chifunda ZAM

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