28 November,2009 10:14 AM IST | | A Correspondent
Karim Darwish, who led Egypt to a long-awaited victory in this year's World Team Championships after participating in five campaigns since 2001, has been one of his country's leading players throughout the decade.u00a0
After being overshadowed by compatriots Amr Shabana and, more recently, Ramy Ashour, the 28-year-old enjoyed a sensational PSA Tour run in 2008 which included six PSA Tour final appearances and title successes in three.
The result was that Darwish exploded past his illustrious fellow countrymen this year to top the Dunlop PSA Word Rankings for the first time in January u00e2u0080u0093 thus ending the 33-month reign of his Egyptian teammate Shabana.
Darwish will be in Mumbai shortly for the Punj Lloyd PSA Masters 2009 to be played at the Bombay Gymkhana from December 5 to 10.
He enjoyed a distinguished junior career, winning both the British Junior U19 Open and World Junior Open trophies before claiming the World University Championship title in Austria in August 2002.
Darwish dedicates his success to his parents and brother Walid, who encouraged him and gave him all their support ever since he started playing squash.u00a0In December 2007, he married fellow international squash player Engy Kheirallah.
"During tournaments I sometimes get tense, but because she understands the game, she knows exactly how to get me relaxed and focused," said Darwish.u00a0 "It's nice to have someone close to you who understands what you do and knows what's it like to be in your shoes."
There are frustrations too. "Sometimes Engy and I don't get to see each other for more than one month because of the tournament schedules. This can be very frustrating, but we travel to more than four or five tournaments together which is not bad," he said.
Having just finished runner-up to Englishman Nick Matthew in the prestigious Qatar Classic, Darwish looks set to regain his World No 1 ranking, a position he held for the first 10 months of this year.
