Wales Squash Ace Joel Makin Hits New Career High In World Rankings

Joel Makin has risen to a career high No 9 in the world in the latest PSA Men’s rankings.

The 25-year-old from Haverfordwest has moved up one place after reaching the quarter-finals of last month’s Manchester Open, the first squash event since March.

Tesni Evans, who went out in the second round in Manchester having been sidelined by an ankle injury then the COVID-19 suspension, remains at No 9 in the women’s rankings.

Seeing double: Joel Makin in action in Egypt later today.

Makin lost in the last eight to Egypt’s eventual winner Mohamed ElShorbagy, who remains in top spot for a ninth successive month.

Birmingham-based Makin’s rise comes ahead of his decisive PSA World Tour Finals Group B game in Cairo tonight.

Makin – who beat reigning world champ Tarek Momen in his opening match – will reach the semi-finals if he beats New Zealand’s Paul Coll, ranked five in the world.

And Makin’s rise up the rankings comes just days after Squash Wales’ Performance Director David Evans said he could be No 1 in the world in the next couple of years.

Tesni Evans celebrates victory at Manchester Open on her comeback to tournament squash after an ankle injury teethe COVID-19 suspension.

“It would be a disservice to Joel to say he could be top three or top six,” said Evans, the former world No 3.

“He has been beating the best players in the world over the past couple of years and there is no reason why he can’t make it to No 1.

In the men’s rankings, Emyr Evans has moved up three places to a career high 102 just one place behind Caerphilly’s Peter Creed.

Ali Loke is Wales’ other player in the women’s top 100 in 79th spot.

The PSA World Rankings had been frozen as a result of the six-month suspension due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. But the rankings are unfrozen from today onwards with a new ranking system coming into place to ensure that no player rankings are affected during the restart of the PSA World Tour, which resumed last month at the Manchester Open.

The new system uses a cumulative total of points made up of the top 10 tournament results for men and top nine for women. This differs from the previous system, which divided the total number of points a player had accumulated over a 12-month period by the number of tournaments played to give an average score.

In addition, to safeguard players’ rankings during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of months counting towards the ranking system will be temporarily increased. Rankings from October 1, 2020 – January 21, 2021 will include points earned in tournaments from March 2019 to date.

Points will then gradually come off in a staggered rhythm from February 1, 2021, with the normal 12-month rolling time period expected to return by 1 July 2021.