Just two days after regaining his world number one ranking, Karim Darwish has been forced to withdraw from this week's Punj Lloyd PSA Masters in Mumbai as the result of a back injury.
The 28-year-old Egyptian, who has topped the PSA world squash rankings for all but one month of this year, was seeded to win the $152,500 championship - the first Professional Squash Association Super Series event to be staged in India for 12 years.
The Punj Lloyd PSA Masters will be held at the Bombay Gymkhana from 5-10 December. It will be the 8th staging of the PSA Masters, the only PSA Tour event which is open exclusively to the top 32 players in the world.
Darwish will be succeeded as top seed by Gregory Gaultier, the Frenchman who became world number one for the first time in November. Egypt's Amr Shabana, the reigning World Open champion and the last winner of the PSA Masters title in 2006 in Bermuda, is elevated to No2 seed.
Frenchman Mathieu Castagnet, the world No58 from Le Mans, is the lucky recipient of the vacant slot in the 32-man PSA Masters draw – and faces Shabana in the opening round.
Revised 1st round draw:
[2] Amr Shabana (EGY) v Mathieu Castagnet (FRA)
[15] Cameron Pilley (AUS) v Saurav Ghosal (IND)
[6] James Willstrop (ENG) v Jonathan Kemp (ENG)
[12] Mohamed El Shorbagy (EGY) v Mohd Azlan Iskandar (MAS)
[3] Ramy Ashour (EGY) v Hisham Mohd Ashour (EGY)
[14] Stewart Boswell (AUS) v Mohd Ali Anwar Reda (EGY)
[5] David Palmer (AUS) v Tom Richards (ENG)
[11] Wael El Hindi (EGY) v Omar Mosaad (EGY)
[16] Ong Beng Hee (MAS) v Joey Barrington (ENG)
[7] Thierry Lincou (FRA) v Olli Tuominen (FIN)
[9] Adrian Grant (ENG) v Chris Ryder (ENG)
[4] Nick Matthew (ENG) v Renan Lavigne (FRA)
[10] Alister Walker (ENG) v Ritwik Bhattacharya (IND)
[8] Peter Barker (ENG) v Julian Illingworth (USA)
[13] Laurens Jan Anjema (NED) v Davide Bianchetti (ITA)
[1] Gregory Gaultier (FRA) v Daryl Selby (ENG)