Cav Corner: From Egypt to Charlottesville
In March of 2020, the Virginia men’s squash team was wrapping up a banner year. The team had won the Potter Cup Consolation Final, finishing fifth in the tournament for the best finish in program history. The squad’s meteoric rise through the ranks of the sport was ignited by a pair of freshmen playing at the top of the ladder: Aly Hussein and Omar El Torkey. Hussein earned First Team All-America honors and El Torkey, a second team All-American, was the 2020 Mid-Atlantic Squash Conference Player and Rookie of the Year. With both of those players still having three seasons of eligibility remaining and Taha Dinana, a top recruit and a member of the men’s national team, committed, there seemed to be no stopping the Hoos.
“We had just finished the [2020] season,” Hussein recalled. “[Head coach] Mark [Allen] came up to Omar and I one day and was like you guys should go home.”
‘Home’ was Cairo, Egypt.
Dinana, who is also from Cairo also received the same advice from his boarding school in Connecticut on how to handle the pandemic shutdown, and returned home to Egypt. All three finished their school years online.
Whereas the majority of the team and the UVA student body returned to Grounds last year, Hussein, Torkey and Dinana remained in Cairo, navigating being a student-athlete 5,900 miles away from their professors and classmates and their coaches and teammates.
“It was it was pretty difficult because you’re home and home is different,” Hussein said. “You want to chill all the time and hang out with your friends. And Egypt is seven hours ahead. So if a class was at three, for us it was at 10 p.m.”
Hussein’s biggest challenge was an international relations discussion that took place at 2 a.m. Cairo time.
“Sometimes, I wasn’t able to attend it like as it was so early,” Hussein said. “I had to communicate with a TA and explain the situation. Everyone was nice about that and understood the situation pretty well.”
For the most part, they studied alone, except for a J-term class that both Hussein and Dinana were taking together. They would meet at Dinana’s house to attend the virtual class together.
As for the other half of the equation, all three stopped playing squash for varying lengths, with Torkey having the longest break.
“I took a whole year off which was very much needed,” El Torkey said. “I got back at it in May [2021]. I started like practicing for a month or two. I kind of got back in shape in those two months, which was crazy. I don’t know how I did that. But then I started competing again in a couple of professional tournaments back in Egypt before coming back which boosted my confidence and got me ready for getting back to practicing during the season.”
El Torkey picked up his first professional win in those tournaments, winning the PSA Challenger in Cairo in July.
“I had to work at home,” Hussein said of his beginning of the pandemic. “We had a garage I was working out in it. Once COVID got a little better in January, I was able to go to my club and train there. It was difficult, but I had to do it. I didn’t have any other choice.”
Hussein’s training paid off. He won the 2021 Odense Open tournament in Denmark that earned him a spot in the PSA Squash World Championships in Chicago in July. His performance has also moved him into a top-100 world ranking.
For Dinana, the return to training came after a six month lapse. He was able to work out with the staff and trainers and his teammates of the Egyptian National Team, which helped him get into playing shape. The transition to becoming a member of the Virginia squash team was a longer one. Though there were numerous team meetings and meetings with the coaching staff via Zoom, he didn’t feel part of the program until he arrived on Grounds this fall for his second year. That transition was made easier by his two roommates, El Torkey and Hussein.
“I needed their guidance,” Dinana said. “They showed me how to go to class and be on time, and things like the dining hall and which foods to pick. They’ve gotten me through everything, especially in workouts. We push each other, like some of some of the time one of us is too lazy to go work out so we have to get him off his butt. But it’s they made a lot better and easier. And it’s actually really fun going to class.”
Dinana, who was projected to play at the No. 7 position in the Cavaliers’ lineup, is instead at the No. 3 position for the team, right behind Hussein and Torkey.
Once again, there seems to be no stopping the Hoos.