JSW Sports, in association with Ivy Sports, has scheduled four back-to-back $10,000 category PSA Challenger tournaments for men and $5,000 category WSA Tour 5 events for women. The fourth event for women in Chennai though will be a $10,000 Tour 10 competition.
Fantastic initiative“It’s a fantastic initiative,” said India’s top squash players Saurav Ghosal and Dipika Pallikal here on Wednesday. While Ghosal will not enter the challengers, Dipika said she would play in the third and fourth events in Mumbai and Chennai.
Four eventsThe four events each for men and women will be staged at Jaipur (October 2-5), Juhu Vile Parle Gymkhana, Mumbai (October 9-12), NSCI, Mumbai (October 16-19) and ISA, Chennai (October 26-29).
“It will be a 16-men and 16-women card draw. The top 11 ranked players who enter the tournaments will get a direct entry. One Indian will be given a wild card and the other four will be determined from a tournament qualifier.
“Around 10 promising Indian professionals are likely to get exposure against professionals ranked above 40 in the PSA ranking list. This will be something like the tennis Futures event. A few top Egyptians, Englishmen and Europeans will enter the challengers,” said Ritwik Bhattacharya, former national champion and PSA representative for Asia.
The Indian wild cards have been given to Kush Kumar, Deepak Mishra, Velavan Senthil Kumar and Vijay Kumar Meena.
Direct entries“Mahesh Mangaonkar (world No. 56) and Harinder Pal Sandhu (world No. 77) should get direct entry. This competition will help promising Indian juniors to compete against top international players. It’s not easy travelling abroad and gain valuable points. We are hoping to hold 10 to 12 events next year. We have identified 20 clubs in the country with good squash court facilities. The national juniors will be held in Chennai and about 900 juniors will get a chance to watch the professionals in action there,” said Bhattacharya.
