Raneem El Weleily

Ranem Mohamed Yasser Saad El Din El Weleily (Arabic: رنيم محمد ياسر سعد الدين الوليلي‎‎; born 1 January 1989, in Alexandria, Egypt) is a professional squash player from Egypt.

Alexandria-born Raneem El Welily has emerged as one of the most skillful players on the PSA Women’s World Tour since she turned professional in 2002. Raneem followed her brother into squash at the age of six and first played for Egypt in the World Juniors 2001 in Penang, then aged ten.

Two years later when the event was played in Cairo she was part of the Egyptian winning squad, and in 2004 she represented the senior team that came fourth in the World Teams in Amsterdam.

The highlight of Raneem’s junior career is when she became the world junior champion in Herentals, Belgium in 2005. Then she was voted WISPA Young Player of the Year for 2005 for the second time after winning it in 2004. She lifted the World Junior Championship twice, in 2005 and 2007

Raneem El Weleily won her first senior Tour title in 2009 when she triumphed at the Heliopolis Open in Egypt.

That win helped catapult her into the world's top twenty and, after making the semi-finals of the Malaysian Open despite being a qualifier, she promptly rose into the top ten. The Egyptian shot-maker doubled her Tour title tally in 2011 and four months later won the biggest event of her career so far, by topping then-World No.2 Jenny Duncalf to lift the prestigious Carol Weymuller Open.

2012 saw El Welily reach World No.2 for the first time and in September of that year she won her first World Series title by defeating World No.1 Nicol David in the final in the CIMB Malaysian Open. David got her revenge in the US Open a month later before the Egyptian stunned the Malaysian again in the 2013 Cleveland Classic final to lift another crown. El Welily amassed three runner-up spots in the remainder of 2013, with David winning all three, before she won her second Malaysian Open title in 2014, beating Nour El Tayeb in the final.

She reached the final of the World Championship in December 2014 but David proved to be a stumbling block once more as she denied El Welily squash's biggest crown. Undeterred, El Welily had a terrific opening to 2015 as she won the Tournament of Champions, the Windy City Open and the Alexandria International to close the gap on David’s hold on the World No.1 ranking. In May 2015 she was named as the PSA Women's Player of the year for the 2014/15 season. In September 2015, Raneem surpassed David to clinch the World No.1 ranking in the PSA Women's World Ranking.

Raneem graduated from the German School in Alexandria and between training sessions she also finds time to indulge her interests of music, jigsaw puzzles (which she buys from all over the world) and has recently become a sudoku addict.

Finals: 1 (0 title, 1 runner-up)

Outcome	Year	Location	Opponent in the final	Score in the final
Runner-up	2014	Cairo, Egypt	Nicol David	5–11, 11–8, 7–11, 14–12, 11–5

Hong Kong Open: 2 finals (0 title, 2 runner-up)

Outcome	Year	Opponent in the final	Score in the final
Runner-up	2011	Nicol David	11-5, 11-4, 11-9
Runner-up	2013	Nicol David	11-7, 11-7, 12-10

Malaysian Open: 3 finals (2 titles, 1 runner-up)

Outcome	Year	Opponent in the final	Score in the final
Winner	2012	Nicol David	12-10, 11-13, 11-6, 11-2
Runner-up	2013	Nicol David	11-8, 11-7, 11-6
Winner	2014	Nour El Tayeb	7-11, 11-3, 12-10, 2-11, 11-7