They said : Amr Mansi, Alex Gough, Hisham Ezz Al-Arab …

Amr Mansi

Thanks to all that came to support our game… I don’t know where to start…. I remember, 23 years ago, I got a ticket, I got on the bus from Alexandria, and I came here to watch Ahmed Barada playing by the Great Pyramids of Egypt.

Since that day, along side my whole generation and the following ones, I have been dreaming to come here and compete on this court. Well I did not get that chance myself, but I’m very honoured to be part of providing this opportunity for the world top players.

So Dreams do come true sometimes.

To CIB Egypt, thanks for being the reason we are bringing two of the major events of the year to the most iconic venue in the world. Without your long commitment to squash, we wouldn’t have been able to bring that event to life. And I would like to thank all of the CIB team for all your support during our journey.

Also, thanks to all our sponsors, Orascom development, thank you for believing in us and supporting squash, to OnSport, for showing to millions squash 6 hours per day for a whole week, thanks to our Minister of Youth and Sport, to the Tourism Authorities for believing in the importance of bringing such an event to our country. Thanks to the Egyptian Federation, Alex Gough and PSA, for believing in us from the very beginning and providing us with all the support we needed, we’ve been working successfully together since 2010 and we took squash to a new level.

To the players, it was an honour to watch you play by the Pyramids, and congratulations to all the winners. Keep making us proud.

Alex Gough

As Amr said, we’ve been working with the IEvent team since 2010. The setting is like nothing else in sport, less alone in squash. It really is just incredible to be at the pyramids.

Thank you again to the Egyptian Tourism, thanks again to the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Ashraf Sobhy.

And the main reason we’ll all been able to pull this off is CIB Egypt. So on behalf of the players, and the PSA, thank you every so much.

Hisham Ezz Al-Arab, chairman and Managing director CIB

I’m very proud to be here today with you. We have been very proud that CIB has been supporting squash for the past three years. Not only that, we showed the world what Egypt can do in such a tournament.

The other message is for equality. By offering slightly more prize money than for the men, we are sending a message to the world that there is no difference between men and women.

And my last message is for the Olympic Committee. It’s about time to consider squash! It’s a sport being played from the US all the way to New Zeland, passing by Egypt, please, consider squash as part of the Olympic Games.