Welshman Joel Makin has moved up a place to a career-high No.9 ranking after the PSA Men’s World Rankings for October were released today.

The PSA World Rankings had been frozen as a result of the six-month suspension due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. But the rankings are unfrozen from today onwards with a new ranking system coming into place to ensure that no player rankings are affected during the restart of the PSA World Tour, which resumed last month at the Manchester Open.

The new system uses a cumulative total of points made up of the top 10 tournament results for men and top nine for women. This differs from the previous system, which divided the total number of points a player had accumulated over a 12-month period by the number of tournaments played to give an average score.

In addition, to safeguard players’ rankings during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of months counting towards the ranking system will be temporarily increased. Rankings from October 1, 2020 – January 21, 2021 will include points earned in tournaments from March 2019 to date.

Points will then gradually come off in a staggered rhythm from February 1, 2021, with the normal 12-month rolling time period expected to return by 1 July 2021.

Makin moves up a spot after reaching the quarter-finals of the Manchester Open last month where he lost out to World No.1 Mohamed ElShorbagy, who claims top spot for a ninth successive month.

Ali Farag (No.2), Karim Abdel Gawad (No.3), Tarek Momen (No.4), Paul Coll (No.5), Diego Elias (No.6), Marwan ElShorbagy (No.7), Simon Rösner (No.8) and Miguel Rodriguez make up the rest of the top 10, with the latter dropping down a spot.

Egypt’s Fares Dessouky rises one place to No.11, swapping places with fellow Egyptian Mohamed Abouelghar. The rest of the top 20 is unchanged, with Saurav Ghosal (No.13), Mazen Hesham (No.14), Omar Mosaad (No.15), Gregoire Marche (No.16), Zahed Salem (No.17), Mostafa Asal (No.18), Adrian Waller (No.19) and James Willstrop all featuring.

Poland’s Filip Jarota is the biggest mover, rising 86 places to No.306.

The October PSA Men's World Rankings top 20
The October PSA Men’s World Rankings top 20