WORLD SQUASH NEWS

White Holds Onto World No1 Ranking - By The Narrowest Margin

Scotland's John White retains the No1 position in the new April Dunlop PSA Men's World Squash Rankings, announced today (31 March) by the Professional Squash Association (PSA) - but, by the narrowest margins ever recorded, less than half a point separates the top three players in the list!

White, the 30-year-old from Nottingham who topped the rankings for the first time last month, boasts a points average of 699.861; while England's Peter Nicol moves up to second place with a score of 699.583; and Frenchman Thierry Lincou slips to third just a fifth of a point away with a tally of 699.375!

Both White and Nicol, the London-based former world No1 who celebrates his 31st birthday this week while leading a charity expedition to the Everest region of Nepal, reached the quarter-finals of the inaugural five-star Bermuda Open in March, while Lincou fell at the first round.

Lee Beachill, the 26-year-old Englishman who celebrated his second major PSA Tour title in three months when he lifted the Bermuda Open trophy in Hamilton, consolidates his hold on fourth place, while Australia's David Palmer, runner-up to Beachill after beating Nicol in the last eight, moves up to six in the new list, behind Egypt's fifth-placed Karim Darwish.

Jonathon Power, a losing semi-finalist in the Bermuda Open, drops one place to eight - the Canadian's lowest position since November 1996.

Pakistan's Mansoor Zaman, who recorded one of the best wins of his career in January when he toppled the year's first world No1 Thierry Lincou in the Kuwait Open, is rewarded by a rise to 19 in the April list.

1 [1] John White SCO
2 [3] Peter Nicol ENG
3 [2] Thierry Lincou FRA
4 [4] Lee Beachill ENG
5 [5] Karim Darwish EGY
6 [8] David Palmer AUS
7 [6] Amr Shabana EGY
8 [7] Jonathon Power CAN
9 [9] Anthony Ricketts AUS
10 [10] Nick Matthew ENG
11 [11] Joseph Kneipp AUS
12 [12] Gregory Gaultier FRA
13 [13] James Willstrop ENG
14 [14] Ong Beng Hee MAS
15 [15] Omar Elborolossy EGY
16 [16] Graham Ryding CAN
17 [17] Adrian Grant ENG
18 [18] Mohammed Abbas EGY
19 [20] Mansoor Zaman PAK
20 [19] Paul Price AUS

For full list - see www.psa-squash.com/