It's one thing to be the best player on your own team or the best player in your conference. It's simply remarkable to be the best collegiate player in the entire country — and by a pretty wide margin. Yasser El Halaby has accomplished this and so much more in just his first two years here at Princeton. That's right — he's just a sophomore.
Two years ago, as the men's squash team completed a very successful season — winning the Ivy title — there was only one thing on the mind of head coach Bob Callahan. It wasn't the fact that the team had come close to winning it all. It wasn't the league championship he had just won. It wasn't what he was having for dinner that night. All he could think and talk about was a young kid out of Egypt who was supposedly wondrous with a squash racket.
Two years later, that kid has blossomed into a two-time individual national champion at the collegiate level.
Last year, El Halaby beat his teammate Will Evans in the finals to claim his first title.
This year the competition wasn't close. He breezed through the tournament, not dropping one of the 15 games in the five matches needed to claim the national title.
In the semifinals this year, he faced Harvard's No. 2 man, Siddhart Suchde, and won 9-7, 9-3, 9-2. The Crimson's No. 1, Will Broadbent, was waiting in the finals. A 9-0, 9-6, 9-1 win later, and El Halaby was again the individual national champion. In two championship matches, he has lost only 12 points, for an average of just two per game.
El Halaby also became the first amateur ever to qualify for the Tournament of Champions, held in New York. The Tournament is composed of 32 players, the top 24 players in the world are automatically invited and there are eight qualifying spots. El Halaby was given a wild card seed into the tournament. He defeated No. 90 David Phillips in three games and then topped the No. 1 Brazilian player to qualify for the Tournament of Champions, and in the process, make history.
For his accomplishments this year, the 'Prince' is proud to name Yasser El Halaby its Male Athlete of the Year.
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