BY ROD GILMOUR



Those of you who have watched Friday Night Lights, the hit American television series about a Texas high school football team’s exploits, will be well versed in the tales of Coach Eric Taylor as he dealt with the daily antics of his charges, some of whom left as heroes, others as drop outs.

“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” was the most notable battle cry. It is a mantra that Ali Farag clearly took on at Harvard University before he became Egypt’s latest wonder kid recruit to join the professional squash ranks.

“I’ve played in many big places before but none of them was as big as playing for the Harvard team,” says Farag, who ended his collegiate days in May 2014 with a degree in mechanical engineering.

“You’ve got hundreds of people behind the glass rooting for you from deep inside their hearts. You’re all united going for one goal. All you had to do was look at your team-mates and coaches’ eyes.”

Farag, 23, has that same intensity when he now goes on court on the PSA World Tour. “I’ve been through it for three years. It’s something that I’ve benefited from,” he adds.

Cairo-born and slender built, Farag’s first full year on tour proved a revelation. He started 2015 at world no.86 and now finds himself a few places outside the top 10. His biggest win to date came in January when he ousted favourite Mohamed Elshorbagy, third seed Mathieu Castagnet and three-time world champion Nick Matthew in successive rounds to win the Motor City Open. All this after he was beaten by Ramit Tandon, the world no.255 from India, in the first qualifying round of the Tournament of Champions only a few weeks earlier.

In all, it was a month to cherish and learn from, in a squash career that has already been thrown several lifelines as he tried to balance both squash and academic life back in Cairo.

After two losses in 2009 against a local player he was more accustomed to beating, Farag was driven home, went straight to his room and didn’t speak to anyone. His brother, Wael, followed him back and tried to iron out the problems. “There’s no problem. It’s okay,” Farag, then aged 16, told his brother. “Just sell my rackets then I’m done with the game!”

From then on, Farag succumbed to brotherly passion. A month later, he beat Andrey Shoukry for the first time and he began to believe himself. It was, he says, a major turning point in his life.

A year later, Farag played the 2010 World Junior Championships in Ecuador. Beaten in the final, he formed part of the trio, including Marwan Elshorbagy, which lifted the team title. Despite the honours, Farag still believed then that his squash career would end before the senior ranks. “I never expected to go pro,” he says today.

During the tournament, the then Harvard squash coach came up to him every day showing an interest in his game and a possible place at the University. Farag discussed it with his family and decided to stay put. “I was very rude, to be honest, as I never responded [to Harvard].”

Six months later, Harvard were again making noises at the 2011 British Junior Open as Farag lifted the under-19 title. Englishman Mike Way, now installed as the university’s coach, met with Farag’s parents in Sheffield and the first seeds were sown.

He was persuaded to undertake an interview the same month. Four days later, the Egyptian Revolution took hold, his parents urged him to reconsider the offer and after sitting his SAT exams, Farag was soon called with the good news.

“Egyptians used to either play squash or focus on academics - nobody really did both,” he says. “But now squash is seen as a passport to get into the American universities, and people are focusing on both disciplines. I think you’ll see a lot of upcoming players do the same now.”

His time at Harvard – along with Amanda Sobhy, the pair were outstanding no.1’s – was the start of a fruitful relationship with Way. He graduated with an unbeaten 20-0, win-loss record in his final season, losing just one game. In all, he finished with a 52-2 career record.

Further, Farag, regarded as a clean and fair player, credits Way for instilling belief and mental aspects to his game. “He knows exactly what to say, when and how to say it.”

Indeed, Way became an important father figure when matches reached boiling point. “Whenever someone cheated I used to get angry,” he admits. That’s where Way’s input proved clinical. Now he tries to forget about it, hoping the opponent will get more angry.

With this intact, how does Farag view his style of play? “It has to do with how you were born. I don’t have the extravagant shots of Ramy Ashour and Mazen Hesham. But thankfully I had good movement so I could economise my energy. I could work my opponent around. Of course, I should do it smartly. I shouldn’t be passive and go for the back of the court each time. It’s how my body has developed and it’s my style of play right now.”





Mixing business with a game of squash has long been associated with the sport and Farag now hopes to requisite the two over the next decade. He is currently involved in two sideline projects (educational and watch businesses) while his downtime at tournaments is usually spent watching episodes of Shark Tank, which sees budding entrepreneurs pitch their business idea to five experts.

Spool forward to when Farag calls time on his career – he calls Peruvian Diego Elias and Frenchman Lucas Serme as two “dangerous rivals” over the coming years – and the Egyptian hopes to move into another passion: solar energy.“I think it will still be booming then,” says Farag. “There is a huge resource in Egypt that we’re not utilising. We have a massive space of empty land with sand good enough to produce the silicon solar cells.”

Considering this was also the subject of his thesis, it is little wonder that Farag admits that he was still weighing up a career in the private sector at the start of the year (despite winning three PSA titles in 2015).

However, various conversations with family and friends, including his fiancée Nour El Tayeb who he calls his “comfort zone” – the couple will marry in May – persuaded him otherwise. For the passion and adrenaline accrued from squash is something that Farag “will never encounter in any business or anywhere else in my life. It’s something I will regret not doing.”

Not when there are so many world title winners currently residing in Egypt. “There isn’t a place better than Egypt really to live in if you ever think of playing squash. Most of us live in Cairo, and the furthest you have to drive with any of the top players is 45 minutes. I am extremely lucky to have the privilege to train with the likes of Omar Mosaad, Tarek Momen, Mohamed Abouelghar, Mazen Hisham and Karim Abdel Gawad every day of every week.

“It really is a community of champions and you can’t help but get better by having those class act players lifting you up day in and day out.”

Both on court and off, Farag is getting down to business.

WHAT THEY SAY

“His legacy is going to go down in history. He’s played a brand of squash here that no one has ever seen in our sport. He’s definitely going to live on for the guys who have played alongside him, and also for us as the coaches. As long as we’re in the driver’s seat, we will refer to Ali and how no one respects the game as much as he does - respecting referees, opponents, coaches - that’s part of his legacy.”

Mike Way, Harvard coach