Last week saw the British National Championships 2024, culminating in No.1 seed Georgina Kennedy winning her maiden title, while Welshman Joel Makin dethroned Mohamed ElShorbagy claiming his first win since 2021.
With 32 squash players taking part in 30 matches over the course of the British National Championships, it was exciting week at St George’s Hill Lawn Tennis Club in Weybridge.
First time champion Georgina Kennedy said “It’s such an honour to win this title for the first time,”
“I’ve never won it before, and I really wanted to win it this year, especially being the No.1 seed for a second year in a row. That was such a tough test against S-J, she’s such a good person on and off the court, and she did so well to come back and take the third. She was completely dominating me in the fourth, but I managed to turn it around and got that lucky shank on match ball.”
While Joel Makin said, of his performance against Mohamed ElShorbagy, “I was really happy with the way I found my way back into the match. For the past two years he’s put on unbelievable performances. I’ve taken those losses and come back. I was almost there again, I was 7-3 down in the second and I was just going to dig down and try and find my way back into the match so it was a massive one to win and was so happy to get over the line.”
Top Percentage Increases Over the British National Championships 2024*
But it’s not all about the winners, SquashLevels has taken the data from the tournament and analysed all of the incredible performances over the weekend, finding out the top five most improved players, by the largest percentage level increase, across the tournament.
1. Sarah-Jane Perry
England’s #4 (according to the England Squash August Ratings) put in an incredible tournament, her level rising by 13.00% from 9,875 to 11,559. Watch this space as she will rise up the ratings in September.
2. Tesni Murphy
The Welsh #1 saw a level increase of 7.71% from 10,797 to 11,629.
3. Joel Makin
Not only did the Welsh #1 put in an incredible performance against top seed and England’s #1 Mohamed ElShorbagy to reclaim the title, he also had an epic tournament, watching his level increase by a massive 6.66% from 69,627 to 74,896 where he is now sitting at #5 in the world in the SquashLevels ratings.
4. Georgina Kennedy
England’s #1 finally claimed her maiden British National Championship title, alongside an impressive 2.66% increase in level from 16,263 to 16,696.
5. Mohamed ElShorbagy
England’s #1 Mohamed ElShorbagy may not have walked away with the title this year but he did have a 2.54% increase in level taking him from 64,340 to 65,977.
*Please note that levels are dynamic and change daily after the nightly processing due to calibration and new and historic matches being entered into the system. The data analysed has been pulled from SquashLevels from the last day of the tournament, and may be different to the level currently showing on player profiles.
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