Squash World Cup returns to Chennai, timing keeps big guns away

Taking place after 12 years, the tournament will not feature a star-studded lineup, like in 2011, when the winning Egyptian team consisted of four former world number ones.

Tamil Nadu Sports Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin with Indian Squash player Joshna Chinappa and others at the inaugural ceremony of Squash World Cup, in Chennai. | Photo Credit: R Senthil Kumar/ PTI

The Squash World Cup is taking place in Chennai from June 13 to 17, 2023. Taking place after 12 years, the tournament will not feature a star-studded lineup, like in 2011, when the winning Egyptian team consisted of four former world number ones (Amr Shabana, Ramy Ashour, Raneem El Welily and Mohamed El Shorbagy.) 

In the 2023 edition, barring two - Satomi Watanabe of Japan and Saurav Ghosal of India - none of the players are currently even in the top 20 in the World. The World top 100 is where the majority of the participating crowd falls.  

The reasons for the best players missing out may be manifold, but can largely be brought down to two.

First, is the odd timing of the tournament. Speaking on this, Satomi Watanabe, the Japanese world no. 18, says, “The squash season has ended, only the PSA Finals remain, if this tournament were to happen at the start of the year, a lot of players would have come since it would have made for great match practice.”  

It is not just the timing of the tournament in relation to the PSA World Tour calendar that plays spoilt sport, the hurried organizing of the event on WSF’s part perhaps trumps that.  

“If WSF had a full plan wherein they signed a well-planned long-term agreement with us then we could have worked on getting the top players and finding a good spot,“ says N. Ramachandran the honorary life President of Squash Rackets Federation of India (SRFI). 

Mr. Ramachandran also said that the last minute demand by the world body meant that SRFI had to conduct the tournament during the only open slot in the PSA calendar. This would also mean getting players who agreed to come in their off-season. Also, with the top eight players in the world set to play the PSA World Tour finals on June 20 ^th they would automatically get ruled out.  

Secondly, with the tournament being a WSF event and there not being a clear integration between the world body and the PSA World Tour, the age-old problem of no PSA points on offer sticks out again.  

Handing out points with this being a team event would have been tricky and therefore the players who spend the whole year playing for ranking points on the tour do not have that major aspect to fight for. 

In these circumstances, the major highlight then for the athletes, as Egyptian Fayrouz Aboelkheir puts it is “playing to win under the national flag.” Fayrouz a 17-year-old Egyptian squash prodigy, who within a year of being on the PSA World Tour reached a world ranking of 34, has never played for Egypt at such an event before.  

Satomi concurs with her, “There are no points and it’s the end of the year so, for us this is mostly to get the feeling of a team atmosphere and really enjoy that along with some great match practice and of course try and win.” 

The organizers however have a unidirectional focus - the growth of squash in Tamil Nadu. 

“For us the major focus is to have as many tournaments like this as we can have in a year in Chennai. We just want more and more people in Tamil Nadu to get involved and gather more eyeballs for the sport here,” SRFI president, N. Ramachandran quips.  

In the end, the Squash World Cup 2023 is a mixed bag. On one hand, it’s a far cry from the stature attached to World Cups and even the one that took place in 2011 but on the other hand, it’s an opportunity for India to put itself on the map with more events like this on the radar.