(Photo courtesy of hastalavista.pl)
By Howard Harding
Egypt has been named as top seeds for the 2013 WSF Women’s World Junior Team Squash Championship and are firm favourites to become the first nation in the event’s 28-year history to win the title four times in a row.
The biennial World Squash Federation Championship gets underway on 22 July at the Hasta La Vista Club in the historic city of Wroclaw in Poland following Sunday’s world individual finals.
Egypt, boasting all four players in Saturday’s Women’s World Junior Championship semi-finals, will be led by Nour El Sherbini, 17, ranked 11th internationally from Alexandria who is bidding to become the first player in history to win a world junior individual title for a third time.
The defending champions are expected to line up against the US, the second seeds, in Saturday’s final. The US, who were runners-up in 2011 in their first ever appearance in the final, will be led by Sabrina Sobhy, the 16-year-old sister of 2010 world junior champion Amanda Sobhy.
Five-time champions England are the third seeds, ahead of fourth seeds Hong Kong China, the 2005 champions.
Full Pool line-ups:
Pool A: [1]Egypt, [8] New Zealand, [9] Australia, [13/16] Poland
Pool B: [2] USA, [7] Canada, [10] France, [13/16] Czech Republic
Pool C: [3] England, [6] India, [11] Japan, [13/16] South Africa
Pool D: [4] Hong Kong China, [5] Malaysia, [12] Colombia, [13/16] Germany
