Penn captured another national squash title even as three players fasted for Ramadan
Salman Khalil clinched the Potter Cup national team championship by beating Yale's Tad Carney. Khalil, Marwan Abdelsalam, and Omar Hafez of the Quakers were fasting during the final.
The men’s squash team at Penn won the Potter Cup national team championship for the second year in a row on March 9 at the Arlen Specter Squash Center. The Quakers overcame Yale, 6-3, in the final round of the tournament, completing an undefeated season at 20-0.
Sophomore Salman Khalil, the 2025 College Squash Association individual champion, defeated Yale’s Tad Carney, 11-4, 11-13, 11-9, 11-3, to clinch the team championship. Khalil, a Muslim, was fasting for Ramadan during the tournament.
“First of all, I am so thirsty,” Khalil told reporters immediately after his championship-winning match. Those who observe Ramadan abstain from eating or drinking from dawn to sunset. Ramadan coincides with the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and lasts 29 or 30 days. Celebrating Ramadan is a requirement for all mature, practicing Muslims.
Khalil was not alone. Freshman Marwan Abdelsalam, the Ivy League Rookie of the Year, and junior Omar Hafez, a CSA All-American, also observe Ramadan. The three, all natives of Egypt, opted to compete at the highest collegiate level while actively fasting. Before Ramadan began, they told the coaching staff of their plan to do so.
“When we knew this was going to happen, the coaches sat together, we tried to figure out: What can we do? How can we help the students?” said coach Gilly Lane, a Penn alumnus. “It finally dawned on me that these guys have been doing this their entire lives. I’ve never fasted in my entire life, so in this situation, they’re the experts. And that’s where I have to follow their lead.”
Khalil noted that this was the first time he competed while fasting. In Egypt, he did not play in tournaments during Ramadan. To prepare for nationals, he joined Abdelsalam and Hafez in fasting during practice days a month before the beginning of Ramadan. By the time the tournament had begun, the three were used to “training while fasting.”
“Usually I get up early in the morning, have breakfast with the team, and spend a lot of time around the team. But no, Ramadan is different,” Khalil explained. “I try to get up as late as possible because you don’t want to lose all the fuel you have in your body. You save that as much as you can for the match. Before the match, I try to isolate myself and spend as much time alone as I can to save as much energy as I can.”
After last season’s championship, the Quakers entered the season ranked No. 1 and with an expectation to repeat. With each win, the expectation grew larger and the pressure grew.
“Last year, we were the ones chasing the title and were like — I wouldn’t say the underdogs, but we’ve never won it before, so we were attacking and going for it,” Khalil said. “Whereas this year, we’re the defending champions, and we know we’re also expected to win this year, too. There was a lot of pressure going in [to the championship]. A couple weeks out, I feel the relief after winning and all the stress and nerves going away.”
Added Lane: “One of the hardest things was there was a massive target on our back … We talked about it on a weekly basis, that ‘you can always be beaten, right?’ The guys made sure that they were professional in their approach.”
Not one of Penn’s 20 opponents was able to hit the target. The Quakers’ undefeated season marks the first in program history. Along with the team’s success, Khalil became the first Quaker since 1979 to win a CSA individual title.
The CSA individual national championships were at the end of January. Khalil entered the tournament ranked No. 1 alongside three of his Penn teammates. In the final, Khalil was matched against Hafez, ranked No. 6. As the championship came down to two Quakers, neither player received coaching during the match. Both having grown up as top squash players in Egypt, Khalil and Hafez had previously squared off. They were matched up in the Egyptian nationals and at the world junior championships in France two years ago. Because of this, Khalil noted it was not “weird” to take on his teammate.
“We separate our relationship on and off the court” when competing, said Khalil, who won the title with an 11-4, 13-11, 11-2 victory. “We obviously both want the best for each other. … We’ve been through it a lot, so we’re just used to it.”