Egypt squash star Nouran Gohar on choosing motherhood at peak of her career: ‘I needed meaning in my life’
Nouran Gohar never imagined herself competing on the professional squash circuit as a mother.
She thought she would play until she was 31 or 32, then hang up her racquet and focus on growing her family with her husband, Olympic fencer Ziad El Sissy.
Yet here she is, at 28 years old, ready to return to the PSA World Tour at the upcoming Qatar Classic, just five months after giving birth to her daughter Leyla.
Gohar was ranked No 1 in the world when she stepped away from competition after the Egyptian Open last September.
She found out she was two months pregnant during that tournament and broke the news to the world in November.
While on maternity leave, the Egyptian followed a plan to stay in shape, knowing she had every intention of returning to the tour for the start of the 2026-27 campaign.
Gohar kept practising through seven months of pregnancy – she had to stop in the last two months due to some complications – and her fitness trainer had her back in the gym doing breathwork and light training two and a half weeks post-delivery.
“I was telling Ziad, actually, I feel like this is not my body. It’s someone else’s. Like my body feels super different. It was something that I’ve never felt like before at all,” Gohar told The National this week after announcing her comeback.
“And I had to accept the fact that this is how it’s going to feel. I’m going to feel sore from very little things, like things that you would laugh at. Just for five lunges, for example, I would be super sore the next day, like crazy sore.
“But it gets better, if you follow a certain plan and you have the right people beside you.”
Four weeks after giving birth, Gohar was back on the squash court for some solo hitting, just for fun, and she’s now putting the final touches to her game before stepping onto the court in Qatar for a platinum event that begins on September 12.
“I tried to educate myself as much as I could beforehand. I was going to a specialist in pelvic floor work, and I was trying to do the right things to be able to come back,” Gohar added.
“I had a reasonable timeline. Obviously, some people thought it would be too early for me to come back in September. But people didn’t know what I was doing during my pregnancy. I was trying as much as I can to stay in shape.
“In my head, I knew that I was coming back. So I always had that goal to try.
“It was an optimistic plan to come back in September, but so far, so good. It’s going fine.”
Choosing the right moment to pause your career to have a baby can be a difficult decision for all women, especially athletes.
For Gohar, that moment came at a time when she was thriving in terms of results but struggling to find meaning in what she was doing.
“I was doing great. I think that was one of the best seasons of my life,” Gohar said, reflecting on her 2024-25 campaign.
“The past few seasons, I would say from 2021 until 2026, I was either world No 1 or No 2, except obviously the period where I had my plantar fascia injury [late 2023] and I dropped to No 3.
“But last season was a bit different in terms of feeling; like the results were there, everything was perfect. I reached, I think, every single final except the World Championships, where I lost in the semis. I think I did like a historic average ranking, which reflects how good of a season I had. Results-wise, I was doing great, but I wasn’t as happy, or I felt there was a bit of a void or something missing.
“And I reached a point where losing was very, very sad, but winning, I wouldn’t feel as happy; I would just feel normal. So in there, something clicked, or I started thinking, and when you start thinking about this, I feel there is something wrong.
“And I was feeling like, OK, as athletes, we work so hard. We give up on a lot of things in our lives. So if winning doesn’t feel as rewarding, then what’s the point? And when I started questioning myself, I thought, OK, there is something wrong going on here, or I need to think about it differently.”
Despite these doubts, Gohar was certain she wasn’t ready to retire, especially with squash set to make its Olympic debut in LA 2028.
“I wasn’t near retirement, but I needed that break, or I needed a new meaning in my life. I needed something to keep on going,” she said.
“And I remember talking to my team. Obviously, I always had the Olympics as the end goal, and it still is. But I remember the first thing I said by the end of the season, ‘I don’t see myself doing this for three years. I need a break. I need a year of break’. And when I was saying this, having a baby wasn’t in the picture, really.”
Gohar went through the typical cycle of wondering if it was the right time to stop, when she felt she was at the peak of her squash powers.
“You have the experience and your body is still giving you what you need. So it was a tough decision to be taking,” she admits. “But I feel like when these questions started to pop up, I just felt God was giving me a sign that this is the right time right now. You need that break. You need meaning in your life. You have a very supportive partner.
“And I always believe in God’s plan in everything in my life. And I just felt that this was like the right path to take.”
Unlike tennis, where several players have taken breaks in recent years and made successful comebacks, squash doesn’t have too many examples of competing mothers.
Natalie Grinham came back less than a year after the birth of her son in 2011, and more recently Nour El Tayeb travelled the tour with her daughter Farida before she retired from the sport in 2024.
“I always feel like sport is very important, but then sports shouldn’t be stopping you from taking life-changing decisions in general,” said Gohar.
Gohar was young when Grinham competed on tour as a mother, but she witnessed firsthand El Tayeb’s return to the squash after having Farida.
She was amazed by her fellow Egyptian’s ability to compete while travelling with her daughter, and regarded El Tayeb as a “superwoman”.
Gohar is now looking to embark on a similar adventure as she plans to travel with Leyla and her parents, who will be helping Gohar while on tour.
“It’s something that’s a bit scary at the beginning. And if you don’t see people doing it and succeeding, then it doesn’t really allow you to think that it’s possible,” said Gohar.
“But seeing Nour obviously coming back, and she did very well after coming back, I think, I’m hoping hopefully that I do well enough that people will get inspired and they’re like, OK, it’s not as impossible as we thought.”
During her time away from the tour, Gohar watched every match and enjoyed following the sport as a spectator rather than a competitor.
In her absence, a fierce rivalry developed between the world’s current top two, Hania El Hammamy and Amina Orfi, who squared off in a slew of big matches and had a few spats along the way.
Gohar, a fierce competitor herself, has been in her shoes and seen such tense moments in a different light.
“I had people obviously laughing about it because sometimes I was part of these rivalries and these stories, but I think they took it to another level; every year it goes even up a notch,” Gohar says of El Hammamy and Orfi.
“But yeah, I found some comments, like, ‘Wait until Gohar is back’ and stuff like that. It was funny. Obviously, when you’re not in the competition and I’m pretty sure any of them, if they take a break and they watch it from outside, they’re going to see the funny side of it because it’s not that funny at all when you’re in it. You hate every second of it.
“But I think actually this is part of the enjoyment when you win these big matches. It’s because there is this tension and sometimes this tension actually brings the best out of you and it makes you go up with your game, go up a gear and two and three. So I feel, watching from outside, I can see the other perspective, but I can still sense that this tension is important and that these big matches are what made me the player I am.”
At the moment, Gohar is preparing to return to action while adapting to her new reality – one where her daughter is her top priority, ahead of the sport she previously dedicated her entire life to.
“Even sometimes the people close to me, they still see me as the world No 1, right? But in reality, if we look at the ranking today, I’m the world No 66. And I think I’m neither this nor that, currently,” admits Gohar.
“I’m trying to always ground myself and remember that I’m just happy to be back. Definitely my goal, my end goal is to get to world No 1, win another world championship, go to the Olympics, win, but it’s going to be steps and it doesn’t have to be tomorrow. I’m approaching it as if it’s a marathon run. It’s not a sprint. I’m taking my steps. I’m taking my time so that in two years’ time I achieve what I want to achieve.”
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