Both came through hard matches to quell the challenges of Karim Darwish and Vicky Botwright respectively at the World Open Squash Championships.

Botwright was England's only representative on finals day and having announced that this would be her last tournament after taking a coaching job in her home city of Manchester, she did well to beat former world champion Rachel Grinham, English national champion Alison Waters and in the semi-final Harrogate's Jenny Duncalf – who sadly had to retire through injury.

The script could only have been written better had she won on Sunday, but as it stands it was a fairy-tale run and a fitting end to her career, especially in her own backyard.

For David, the world number one, this was her third world title and she is fast writing her way into the record books as one of the all-time great female players.

Ashour is a firecracker of a squash player. He wasted no time in bursting into the top ten with his lightning racket skills and has now achieved his dream at the age of just 21.

There is no finer attacker of a squash ball and although Darwish made a good job of stifling Ashour's talent in the final, the signs of brilliance by the champ were still on show.

My own tournament didn't work out as I had hoped as I lost in the quarter-finals to David Palmer.

It was no disgrace, but I'm not there to lose so I was gutted.

There was consolation in receiving the PSA male player of the year honour at the glitzy World Squash Awards on Saturday, but whilst I was happy to accept this before a gathering of legends, titles are what I'm after, not awards.

The tournament, as I predicted last week, was spectacularly run and I don't hesitate to say that it has been the most professionally-presented tournament I have played in.

The sport needs to grow and if tournaments of this calibre continue to be staged, it undoubtedly will.

Manchester, which has such a cultural history especially in terms of music and sport, has done it again and produced an event to remember.

All the players are very glad that this is so.