Homegrown players dominated the podium in New Cairo at last weekend’s Egyptian Junior Open in what was a busy weekend of action on the European Squash circuit.
BU19 top seed Osama Al Bataineh of Jordan was the only non-local champion, with all 10 finals contested between Egyptian players at the ESF Gold-level junior event.
Last weekend also saw the debut of the Egyptian Masters (Silver) on the European Squash Federation calendar, whilst in Helsinki, the Finnish Junior Open (Bronze) and Finnish Masters (Silver) also took place simultaneously.
In New Cairo, Al Bataineh overcame [5/8] Kareem Fanous 11-9, 11-4, 9-11, 11-8 in the BU19 final. The Jordanian narrowly lost to Spain’s Oriol Salvia Ripoll in the semi-finals of the European Junior Open last month.
In the GU19 finale, 3/4 seed Jana Haytham was crowned winner following a 11-6, 11-5, 11-9 triumph over [9/16] Talia Hussein.
Top seed Hassan Abdelgalil, who won the British Junior Open BU15 crown in January, has since stepped up into the U17s and showed his rich promise by toppling no.2 seed Mossa El Deeb 11-8, 11-7, 11-6 in Sunday’s final.
Jana Hassan, a 9/16 seed, was the surprise winner of the GU17 title, beating [2] Haneen Sameh Salah Abd El Rahman 11-7, 11-9, 7-11, 11-9.
Check out all the winners and results at the 2026 Egyptian Junior Open here
Concurrently, the Egyptian Masters Open, a new Bronze-level addition to the ESF Masters calendar, took place in New Cairo.
The winners were Mohamed Mosaad (M35+), Ayman Massoud (M45+) and Tarek Abdel-Aziz (M50+).
Check out all results from the Egyptian Masters Open here
In Helsinki, Danish second seeds Joel Lund Forst and Swede Dhira Yugabalan were the respective boys’ and girls’ Finnish Junior Open U19 champions.
No.2 seed Forst retained the title he won last year by conquering Polish top seed Mateusz Ptaszek 5-11, 11-9, 11-8, 11-5 in the final, while Yugabalan produced a superb comeback to triumph 11-13, 10-12, 11-7, 11-8, 11-7 over Czechia’s Ella Pelikanova.
Full results from the 2026 Finnish Junior Open here
In last weekend’s concurrent Finnish Masters, there were title wins for five home players: Janne Jarvinen (M35-40), Rikka Piekainen (W35-60), Mika Monto (M50+), Raimo Ykiranta (M60+) and Kale Leskinen (M70+).
