Ramy Ashour Debuts in Top Twenty

Egypt's Amr Shabana strengthens his grip on the world number one ranking in the new June Dunlop PSA Men's World Squash Rankings, published by the Professional Squash Association – ahead of Australia's David Palmer at two and Frenchman Thierry Lincou at No3.

Palmer and Lincou faced each other in last month's final of the Liverpool 08 Open, with the Frenchman fighting back from 0/2 down to record a dramatic win to close the ranking gap on Palmer.

Australian Anthony Ricketts moves up to four in the new list, overtaking England's James Willstrop, a beaten quarter-finalist in Liverpool.

Lee Beachill and Karim Darwish – both of whom reached the Liverpool 08 semi-finals against the seedings – are rewarded with rises in the June list.  Beachill, the Englishman who slumped out of the top ten last month for the first time in four years, returns to No10, while Egyptian Darwish moves up a single place to No9.

Egypt also boasts a top twenty newcomer:  Ramy Ashour, the Cairo teenager who two years ago became the youngest ever world junior champion at the age of 16, bursts into the world's elite for the first time at No20.  Ashour consolidated his maiden PSA Tour title success in the Athens Open in November 2004 by reaching two PSA finals this year, at the Dayton Open in the USA and COAS International in Pakistan.

     1      [1]        Amr Shabana               EGY
     2     [2]        David Palmer                AUS
     3     [3]        Thierry Lincou             FRA
     4     [5]        Anthony Ricketts          AUS
     5     [4]        James Willstrop           ENG
     6     [6]        Peter Nicol                  ENG
     7     [7]        Nick Matthew              ENG
     8     [8]        Gregory Gaultier          FRA
     9     [10]      Karim Darwish              EGY
     10    [11]       Lee Beachill                 ENG
     11    [9]        John White                  SCO
     12    [12]      Mohd Azlan Iskandar   MAS
     13    [13]      Ong Beng Hee              MAS
     14    [14]      Olli Tuominen               FIN
     15    [15]      Stewart Boswell           AUS
     16    [16]      Adrian Grant                ENG
     17    [17]      Mohammed Abbas         EGY
     18    [19]      Alex Gough                  WAL
     19    [18]      Graham Ryding             CAN
     20   [22]      Ramy Ashour                EGY