KARACHI, Jan 5: Five Egyptians and a similar number of British players feature among the top twenty in the men’s world squash rankings January list published by the Professional Squash Association (PSA).

Amr Shabana, the world number one from Egypt, recorded his best ever year in 2007, winning six PSA Tour titles, all of which were Super Series events, culminating in the Endurance World Open in Bermuda, where he became the first player to win the sport’s most prestigious trophy three times since the legendary Jansher Khan.

The 28-year-old from Giza, near Cairo, first topped the rankings in April 2006 and was honoured in December as the PSA Player of the Year for the second successive year.

Despite being out of action for the final two major events of last year (nursing a foot injury), fellow Egyptian Ramy Ashour remains at No2 in the world rankings.

A second successive runner-up berth in last month’s World Open failed to lift Gregory Gaultier above third place in the New Year list.

The Frenchman is ahead of Australia’s David Palmer and England’s Nick Matthew, at four and five, respectively.

James Willstrop, who beat compatriot Matthew in the final of last month’s Mamut English Open, remains at No6 in an unchanged top eight listing.

Englishman Peter Barker, the 24-year-old left-hander from Essexwho clinched victory for his country in December’s final of the World Team Championships, marks his fourth ‘personal best’ ranking in six months with a rise to No12 in the January list.

Lower in the standings, Dutchman Laurens Jan Anjema also registers a career-high world ranking at 19. The 25-year-old from The Hague picked up two Tour titles in the year in the USA, at the Oregon Open and Baltimore City Open.

And veteran campaigner Alex Gough marks a welcome return to the top twenty after almost a year out of it.

The 37-year-old Welshman reached the Bermuda World Open quarter-finals unseeded - his best result in the event since 1998 - and is rewarded with a world No20 ranking.

Also of note in the New Year rankings is the growth of the geographical spread of the players: Ten nations are represented in the world top 20 (an increase on one from the January 2007 list) - while players in the PSA world top 50 hail from a total of 20 countries (three more than twelve months ago).

Top 20 squash players:

1 (1) Amr Shabana EGY 2 (2) Ramy Ashour EGY 3 (3) Gregory Gaultier FRA 4 (4) David Palmer AUS 5 (5) Nick Matthew ENG 6 (6) James Willstrop ENG 7 (7) Thierry Lincou FRA 8 (8) Karim Darwish EGY 9 (10) John White SCO 10 (9) Wael El Hindi EGY 11 (12) Lee Beachill ENG 12 (13) Peter Barker ENG 13 (15) Stewart Boswell AUS 14 (14) Mohammed Abbas EGY 15 (18) Mohd Azlan Iskandar MAS 16 (16) Ong Beng Hee MAS 17 (17) Olli Tuominen FIN 18 (19) Adrian Grant ENG 19 (20) Laurens Jan Anjema NED 20 (25) Alex Gough WAL.

—Agencies