Jonah Barrington
Ramy Ashour
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Jonah Barrington leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Jonah Barrington at #9 and Ramy Ashour at #12.
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The case for Jonah Barrington
The least naturally gifted player on this list and one of the most influential. Barrington came to serious squash in his twenties, having been expelled from university, and concluded that he could not out-hit the Pakistanis so he would out-train the entire sport. The regime he built — road running, weights, court sprints, brutal solo drilling — had no precedent in any racket sport and effectively invented modern squash conditioning. He won six British Opens between 1967 and 1973, at a time when that title was the world championship, and represented both Ireland and Great Britain. His impact off court was larger still: articulate, evangelical and made for television, he turned squash into a mass participation boom in Britain through the 1970s, when hundreds of new courts were built to meet demand. Every player who now treats fitness as the primary competitive weapon, from Jansher Khan to Paul Coll, is working inside the template he set.
The case for Ramy Ashour
The most naturally gifted player squash has produced, and the largest what-if in its history. Ashour won the world junior championship twice, in 2004 and 2006 — the first player to do so — and three World Championships, in 2008, 2012 and 2014, adding a British Open and long spells at world number one. His hallmark was a shot vocabulary nobody else possessed: holds that froze opponents mid-stride, flicked crosscourt nicks hit from impossible positions, and an ability to attack off balls that the coaching manual said must be played safe. At his best, through 2013 and 2014, he strung together long unbeaten runs and was regarded by his peers as untouchable. Chronic hamstring injuries repeatedly cut those runs short and eventually ended his career, and his major total sits well below the players above him. On pure ability, most professionals of his generation still name him first.