What an incredible event, per usual.
Some of the gossip: Nour El Sherbini’s parents were with her at the tournament in part to help her shop for a dress for her wedding this summer. Selection is good in New York, her father Atef told me, but the prices in Dubai are much better.
While one great player stepped down this month (Olivia Blatchford Clyne) another might be coming back. Camille Serme might rejoin the tour. The thirty-four year-old former world No.3 is training again full-time. Perhaps her first event will be the Paris Squash Open 2024 in September, poised to be at a new site.
Another legend in Grand Central was eyeing a comeback, but more towards full health. Anders Wahlstedt, the Swedish international, former world No.18 and U.S. national champion, was there watching the matches. (Wahlstedt is the answer to one of squash’s great trivia questions—”who beat Geoff Hunt in Hunt’s final appearance in the British Open?”)
In October while biking along the Hudson River, Anders was sideswiped by an electric bike messenger who was looking at his phone. It was a traumatic accident—he spent a fortnight in the hospital—and a long recovery still in process.