Words: Framboise Gommendy
There are photographs that alter the course of a sport.
The glass court glowing beneath the Pyramids of Giza in 1996 is one of them. Ahmed Barada and Jansher Khan silhouetted against ancient stone. Thousands of Egyptians packed into the desert night, clapping in rhythm beneath floodlights and stars.
Those images helped change squash forever.
But behind every iconic sporting image lies somebody stubborn enough to imagine it before anyone else could see it. In Egypt, that man was Ibrahim Hassan Hegazi.
Long before Egypt became squash’s modern empire, before the world No 1s and junior dynasties and all-Egyptian finals, Hegazy saw possibility where others saw absurdity. A sports editor, war veteran and relentless dreamer, he understood something fundamental about sport: greatness requires spectacle. Not simply competition, but imagination.
“If my father were with us today, he would be overjoyed to see the dominance of Egyptians in the world of squash,” says his daughter, Rasha.
“My father challenged the world with this championship (the 1996 Al Ahram), and together they proved that the impossible could be achieved.”
Hegazy was born in 1944 and carried himself, according to his daughter, with the mentality of a soldier long after fighting in the October War. “The word ‘impossible’ simply didn’t exist in his dictionary,” she says. “Whatever he set his mind to, he would accomplish.”
That refusal to accept limits would eventually reshape squash.
By the late 1980s Hegazy had become one of the most influential figures in Egyptian sports media, rising to become the youngest editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram Al-Riyadi at just 40 years old. The publication became his obsession. He referred to it affectionately as his “fourth daughter”.
Hegazy with Michelle Martin in 1998
But Hegazy’s ambitions stretched beyond magazines and headlines. He wanted Egypt to stage something the sporting world had never seen before.
“He had an old dream he spoke about often,” Rasha recalls. “Hosting a championship at the Pyramids.”
At the time, the proposal sounded ludicrous. A full squash arena in the desert? On protected historic ground? Exposed to wind and sand and impossible logistics? Officials told him so directly.
“The response was disappointing,” Rasha says. “They told him the idea was almost impossible.”
For Hegazy, that was merely the beginning.
He prepared feasibility studies, lobbied authorities, used his influence within Al-Ahram and leaned on political relationships inside the Mubarak government. This was crucial. Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president at the time, was himself a squash enthusiast. Through that alignment of media influence and political support, Hegazy managed to unlock permissions that few others could have secured.
Even then, disaster nearly intervened.
After the court was purchased, engineers warned the installation could not safely happen because of the terrain and powerful desert winds. Hegazy had intentionally selected elevated ground so the Pyramids would rise dramatically behind the court. It looked magnificent in theory. In practice, they were told it could not work.
“Still, he did not give up,” Rasha says. “He consulted Egyptian engineers to find a solution, and they managed to overcome the challenge.”
The impossible dream became real in May 1996.
What emerged was more than a tournament. It was an act of national staging. Hegazy collaborated with engineer Mohamed Hady to transform the spectator entrance into something resembling an ancient temple gateway. Photographer Samir Al-Ghazouli created exhibitions of historical Egyptian imagery around the site.
“The entire atmosphere felt as if we had travelled back to a beautiful ancient era,” Rasha says.
This was not simply squash placed in front of the Pyramids. It was squash woven into Egyptian identity itself.
And then came Ahmed Barada.
Barada, handsome, charismatic and thrillingly aggressive on court, surged unexpectedly to the final of that first Al-Ahram International. Overnight he became a national celebrity. Television embraced him. Newspapers splashed him across front pages. Crowds treated him like a football icon rather than a squash player.
“My father considered Ahmed Barada as a son,” Rasha says. “Ahmed, in return, treated my father as a true father figure.”
Together, they formed the perfect sporting partnership: the visionary promoter and the magnetic athlete.
Barada gave the tournament a heartbeat. Hegazy gave it scale.
Barada in 1998
The timing proved transformative. Egypt already possessed strong squash foundations through clubs such as Heliopolis, Gezira and Al Shams, and through historic champions stretching back to the 1930s. But the sport remained largely confined within elite circles.
The Pyramids changed that. Suddenly squash was no longer hidden inside private clubs. It was national. Televised. Aspirational. Children could see themselves in it.
Among those children were future world champions such as Ali Farag, Tarek Momen and Karim Darwish, all of whom would later describe Barada and the Pyramids tournament as foundational to their ambitions.
But Hegazy’s influence extended beyond the men’s game too.
His eldest daughter, May Hegazy, was herself part of the first generation of Egyptian girls to compete internationally in squash. Alongside Salma Shabana and Maha Zein, she represented Egypt during the fragile early years of the women’s programme developed by Dr Samiha El Magd.
It is difficult now, amid Egypt’s overwhelming dominance of women’s squash, to appreciate how embryonic the female game once was. Yet the same ecosystem Hegazy helped elevate through Al-Ahram would eventually produce Nour El Sherbini, Nouran Gohar, El Welily and countless others.
In that sense, Hegazy’s greatest legacy was not merely a tournament. It was belief.
The belief that squash could matter globally. That Egypt could own the sport culturally rather than merely participate in it. That an Egyptian player could become a superstar. That a court in the desert could capture the imagination of the world.
“The feeling I had when the championship succeeded was indescribable,” Rasha says. “I was witnessing my father’s dream come to life.”
Today, three decades later, the photographs from the Pyramids remain among the most iconic images in squash history.
Most people remember the players inside the glass walls.
But perhaps the true architect stood just outside them all along.
