More Than Just A Ranking is a series where we get a personal insight into squash players about more than just who they are on court.
We speak with World Number Eight Victor Crouin and World Number 35 Yousef Ibrahim about their journey to becoming professionals through US College Squash System: which has produced a number of top players in both the mens and womens game.
“I played in the College system for four or five years and was so excited to be a part of the tour.”
“I played all my junior career in Egypt. I went to high school in Egypt and then I already had my mind made up about going to college. So it wasn’t like a big decision for me because I already knew I wanted to study abroad in the US.”
“In Egypt there was like a lot of pressure from coaches about you’re not going to study abroad and I think there was there was a moment where a lot of Egyptiansare actually committed to going to study in the US.”
“For me, I wasn’t really like looking at either of those things, like I wasn’t influenced by the people going to the U.S. or influenced by my coaches who wanted me to stay.”
“I had the same thought process that it was really a no brainer that I was going to go pro and I actually enjoyed my academics too. I wanted to pursue both academics and squash, and it wasn’t really an option for me in France.
“I looked at the other side of the Atlantic and thought it could be a good option to actually go to the U.S.”
“I would say like college squash is really strong and the fact that I see now a lot of college players who were studying, whether it’s an Ivy League, a top 20 ranking school whether you’re in in any school, not just Ivy League”
“Lots of people playing in the college system in the US and have the motivation to actually go professional after and that makes me really happy because it’s like a phenomena that wasn’t existent before.”
“If you see the percentage of players that actually graduate right now from the U.S. colleges, most of them, have a desire and motivation to play squash on tour it definitely Helped us to get more mature, put things in perspective and, and get better as players and people.”
