By Mark Allen, San Francisco Bay Club
We are proud to announce that the 2007 North American Open charitable recipient is St. John’s Educational Threshold Center of San Francisco. With a matching challenge grant of $25,000 from The San Francisco Bay Club’s parent company, Western Athletic Clubs, we hope that through ticket sales and the generosity of our sponsors, our tournament will raise at least $50,000 for St. John’s, which was chosen for their dedicated work with youth and families in the historic Mission District of San Francisco.
Judging from our tournament entry list, our 2007 PSA tournament looks to be the most exciting yet. Favorite for the event will undoubtedly be former World No. 1, John White. We are thrilled to welcome White, particularly as it’s the first time that our PSA event has attracted a player ranked in the top-10 in the world rankings.
Seeded two and in the bottom half of the draw will be London-born, left-hander, Adrian Grant. Grant has been one of England’s most industrious performers on the PSA Tour—and in March 2007 he won the COAS International in Pakistan to secure his 13th Tour title since 1999.
World No. 19 Mohd Azlan Iskandar of Malaysia will be our No. 3 seed, and Canadian Shahier Razik will be No. 4. Razik was a finalist in our 2004 event, and champion in 2005. His game of attrition is well suited to our ASB courts and he will get plenty of support from our local, and very vocal, crowd. We are pleased to welcome Razik back again, and I thank him for supporting our event every year since it’s inauguration.
Liam Kenny, Eric Galvez and Shawn Delierre; three of our four predicted quarterfinalists, are returning visitors too. Galvez is one of the fastest and most dynamic players on the tour, and he has played a couple of thrilling matches here at the club. His quarterfinal loss to Alex Gough in 2005 was arguably one of the best matches of the tournament. I would love to see Galvez have a strong run in this year’s event and will be making a point of watching all of his matches.
Once again we have a strong presence of up and coming younger players in the draw, the highest ranked being World No. 52 Chris Simpson of England. Chris made his breakthrough on the PSA tour in November 2006 when he beat top-20 player, Graham Ryding, in the Merritt Properties Open held in Baltimore. He will be hoping for another giant killing if he makes it through to Thursday’s quarterfinal matches.
US hopes rest entirely with Ryan Donegan, our wildcard entry. The valuable PSA ranking points that Donegan will collect will add a significant boost to his current ranking of 135, and a first round win would push him up into a career high ranking inside the top 100.
The depth of talent in this year’s tournament is impressive, however few people will be betting against the hard hitting, No. 1 seed, John White—a player who has appeared in 30 PSA finals. Our bay area squash enthusiasts will enjoy their last chance to get so close to the action, as our $50,000, 2008 North American Open will move to the glass court in the center of Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco.
For the very latest information on the tournament please visit our website, www.givingonthet.org/naopen.
