05 Feb 2024
Three Aspire Academy student-athletes earned podium places at the Slovenian Junior Open Squash 2024 in Ljubljana.
The event attracted players from around the world and featured four age groups – under-13, under-15, under-17 and under-19.
Aspire Academy’s podium places were claimed by Aly Ouda, who won the under-15 title, with Marwan Hamza in third while Omar Farag was the runner-up in the under-13’s.
Aly Ouda overcame the Hungarian top-seed Vince Czako 3-1 in the final and his win will move him into the top ten under-15 players competing in European events.
On his way to finishing third in the under-15’s Marwan Hamza beat the 4th seed Mate Sali of Hungary to reach the semi-finals, where he lost to Aly Ouda. He clinched his place on the podium with a win over 3rd seed Fabijan Duranin of Croatia.
Aspire Academy squash coach Francesco Busi, who travelled to Slovenia with the student-athletes, added that the training and hard work is paying off for Marwan Hamza.
“These results show Marwan is on the right track and is improving all the time,” the coach said.
Three other Aspire Academy student-athletes played in the under-15’s with Yousef Al Malki finishing eighth overall while Mohammed Al Khalaf beat Talal Al Badr as the duo finished ninth and tenth respectively.
At 13 years old this is Talal Al Badr’s first year playing under-15’s and despite still developing physically compared to many of the players in the category his improving technical skills and movement on the court means he can compete at this level.
In the under-13 section Aspire’s Omar Farag, who was the top seed, lost to Egypt’s Hamza Saad.
However, the 3-0 scoreline did not fully reflect the match as he pushed the Egyptian all the way with the Hamza Saad winning every game by just two points - 12-10, 11-9, 14-12.
“We are really happy with this second place but we know that Omar can improve and play even better than this,” coach Francesco Busi insisted.
Also in the under-13’s there was valuable experience for Hamad Al Khalaf who after losing to the eventual winner Hamza Saad in the round of 16 went on to win his three play-off matches without dropping a game to finish ninth overall.
There were also two Aspire student-athletes in the under-17 section with Khalid Al Hammadi finishing sixth and Nassar Al Sharshani fifteenth.
Khalid Al Hamadi came up against some tough opponents as he lost to the number 1 seed and eventual runner-up Nandor Nemeh of Hungary in the quarter-finals. He was then narrowly beaten 3-1 by the Italian number 1 Filippo Conti in the fifth-place play-off.