The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
World’s top woman squash player trains in Connecticut
STAMFORD — The world’s best female squash player might just be your neighbor.
Egyptian-born Nouran Gohar has lived in the Bull’s Head neighborhood of Stamford since December 2021, and this year, she reached the top ranking of women’s squash for the second time in her career.
Gohar trains at the Ox Ridge Riding & Racquet Club in Darien and works out in Norwalk, too.
But when she goes home, it’s to Stamford, a city she chose because of its proximity to top training facilities and coaches, she said.
“It’s the perfect place for me right now,” said Gohar in a phone interview.
Gohar moved to the United States after marrying Ziad Elsissy, a professional fencer from Egypt, in November 2021. Elsissy had lived in Michigan for the past eight years or so and the couple decided to stay somewhere in the United States.
“We thought Connecticut would be a good place to train,” Gohar said.
Squash is growing in popularity in this country, Gohar said, and is bigger on the East Coast, especially in cities like Philadelphia and Newark. Two American women — Amanda Sobhy and Olivia Fiechter — are among the top 10 players in the world. Squash is often confused with racquetball, and while the two sports seem similar at first blush, they each have their own style of racket, ball, court and rules.
In the process of looking for a place to train, Gohar said she searched for a coach to work with. She connected with Greenwich trainer Rod Martin through a fellow top Egyptian squash player who was working with him. At the time, Martin was running sessions out of Chelsea Piers in Stamford.
“We really clicked well and we had good chemistry,” Gohar said.
The Australian Martin was a distinguished and successful squash player himself, reaching number two in the world at one point and winning a number of tournaments including the World Open in 1991.
“It just all came together,” Gohar said.
The top woman squash player in the world has a busy daily schedule.
It generally starts with a conditioning and strength session at 8 a.m. in Norwalk, followed by a technical session at Ox Ridge with Martin around 9:30 a.m. that goes until lunch. Gohar has a break in the middle of the day, followed by another hour-and-a-half squash training around 4 or 5 p.m. On some days, this is followed by a physiotherapy session, finishing up around 7 or 8 p.m.
During the season, which lasts about nine months in the fall, winter and spring, she generally participates in at least one tournament every month, she said.
The first time she reached the number one ranking was in the summer of 2020. She dropped to number two after about three months, but returned to the top spot in April of this year, a position she has held ever since.
Martin, the director of the “Elite Squash” program at the Ox Ridge Riding & Racquet Club, described Gohar as an intense and aggressive player. Her oncourt demeanor has led some to believe she’s a standoffish person, but that is hardly the case, Martin said.
“She’s actually very soft spoken,” he said. “She’s a smart girl, she’s very loyal and caring of other people that she’s got around her.”
Her aggression on the court, he said, has much to do with her competitive nature and desire to be the best.
“You have to be like that if you want to be the best in any sport, really,” he said.
Gohar said she had a similar perception of Martin when she met him, believing the former player to be hard-nosed and intimidating. But she soon discovered that was not the case.
“He’s very nice,” she said. “We kind of have similar character.”
Martin said Gohar is highly focused when she’s on the court. Among her attributes is her swing power, which separates her from other players.
“She whacks the ball harder than the guys do,” he said.
The Gohar-Martin pairing has been a fruitful one so far, as Gohar has reached the final in almost all of the tournaments she has competed in since training with the Greenwich coach.
Among Gohar’s top competitors are other Egyptian players. The country dominates the sport currently, as five of the top 10 male players in the world are Egyptian and five Egyptian women are among the top 10 female players.
Gohar credits former Egyptian player Ahmed Barada, who reached number two in the world ranking, for inspiring a lot of players after him.
She described him as squash’s version of Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Salah, a worldwide icon who rose to fame as a top goal scorer for English team Liverpool Football Club.
The difference between the two is that with Barada, aspiring Egyptian squash players got to train in the same facility as he did because of the sport’s much smaller footprint. Having access to some of the top players in the world only inspired more Egyptian players to reach the heights of the sport, Gohar said.
“Having a world champion training next to you, see him day in and day out, it feels more real,” she said. “It feels like it’s reachable.”
Gohar’s top inspiration is not an Egyptian player, however. Her idol growing up was Nicol David, a Malaysian player, who held the number one world ranking for a record 108 months straight.
Gohar had the opportunity to play against David on a few occasions; he defeated her three times, she said.
“The first time was very special because I could never imagine beating my idol,” she said.
Now, she’s the player others are trying to take down.
“Since I was a kid, I just dreamed about being the best player in the world,” she said.