Nicol David
Sarah Fitz-Gerald
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Nicol David leads 4 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Nicol David at #4 and Sarah Fitz-Gerald at #11.
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The case for Nicol David
The most dominant player of squash's fully professional era and the reason the sport has a mass audience in Southeast Asia. David held the women's world number one ranking for 112 consecutive months, from August 2006 to September 2015, the longest unbroken reign at the top in squash history for either sex. She won a record eight World Championships between 2005 and 2014 and five British Opens, thirteen majors in all, and added Commonwealth Games singles gold in 2010 and 2014 along with a long run of Asian titles. Her game was built on relentless retrieval, immaculate length and a movement style so efficient that opponents complained she never looked hurried. She was the first Asian player of either sex to top the world rankings, was voted world player of the year repeatedly, and retired in 2019 as Malaysia's most decorated athlete in any sport.
The case for Sarah Fitz-Gerald
Five World Open titles — in 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001 and 2002 — put Fitz-Gerald behind only Nicol David and Nour El Sherbini in the history of the women's world championship, and she added a British Open crown to go with them. Her career divides in two: three straight world titles in the late 1990s, then a serious knee injury and a comeback that produced two more at an age when most players of the period had retired. She reached world number one in 1996 and returned to it after the injury, a rare double ascent. Fitz-Gerald was known for a compact, low-error game and exceptional composure in deciding games, and she was central to Australia's dominance of the World Team Championship through the 1990s. She later moved into coaching and administration and served on the World Squash Federation's board during the sport's Olympic campaign.