How it unfolded
The final of this tournament, held May 9 to 18 in Cairo, ended with an Egyptian player losing to a Peruvian in a court packed with Egyptian fans. Diego Elias took the first two games 11-6 and 11-5, never letting Mostafa Asal find a rhythm, and closed out game three 12-10 after Asal briefly clawed back. The match took 61 minutes. The 27-year-old Elias, from Lima, had been coached since childhood by his father and coach Jose Manuel Elias, won back-to-back World Junior Championships in 2014 and 2015, then spent years blocked by Egyptian players on the professional tour. Having reached world number one in 2023, this win made him the first-ever squash world champion from South America. Asal answered by winning the World Championship in each of the following two years.
Why it still matters
This match proved squash could break out of Egypt's monopoly. Peru's registered player count and court count aren't remotely comparable to Egypt's or England's, and the fact that a world champion emerged from that base became a talking point federations around the world used ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. It was also the win that first raised this sport's profile across South America.