Squash in Saudi

In January 2018 the Saudi PSA Women’s Squash Masters was held in Riyadh. The historic $165,000 tournament was the first-ever professional sporting event for women in Saudi Arabia. Nour El Sherbini captured the inaugural event, beating Raneem El Welily a month after losing to her in the finals of...
Above: (l-r) Ed Garno, the oldest man to ever win the men's open draw at the National Doubles, cracked a cross-court while Steve Scharff, Alex Stait, and Zac Alexander watched in the finals of the men's open draw. by James Zug The 2018 National Doubles came back to the game’s birthplace...
By James Zug Squash has gone south. The McArthur Squash Center at the Boar’s Head Sports Club in Charlottesville, Virginia, opened in May 2013. The 33,000 square-foot building boasts a four-wall, white-ball glass showcourt with stadium seating for 50, bleachers for 250 and standing room for another 700. In addition,...
By James Zug It was never supposed to work out like this. In the summer of 1981, Princeton’s athletic director asked Bob Callahan, newly-married IBM salesman, to be on a search committee to find a new coach for the Princeton University men’s squash team. He was a recent alum, former...
By Richard Eaton Photos by Steve Line/squashpics.com There were many well-publicized reasons why Ramy Ashour’s capture of the British Open title—at a pioneering outdoor venue in Hull City’s soccer stadium—has carried him further along the road to greatness. But one of the reasons was hidden. Quite possibly the most important one. Much...

Massaro British Queen

By Richard Eaton Photos by Steve Line/squashpics.com There was a throw-away hint as to why the world’s most successful squash player might suffer her most startling defeat in four years, not long before the British Open began. It was uttered by her coach Liz Irving, when asked if Nicol David’s great ambassadorial...
By Richard Eaton A few days after Nicol David had extended her record of World Open titles to seven it emerged just how much of a watershed in her career this latest success might be. Instead of travelling from Grand Cayman in the Caribbean to her own island idyll of Penang...
Article and photos by Preston Quick The Apawamis Club in Rye New York played host to the 2012 U.S. Squash Doubles Championships. Title sponsored by Hospital for Special Surgery, the event was also co-hosted at six area clubs: Round Hill Club, Westchester Country Club, Field Club of Greenwich, Greenwich Country...
By Richard Eaton Photos by Steve Line/Squashpics.com It was one of the three or four greatest World Championships surprises of all time. Those who witnessed the U.S. Open final only sixteen days before might rate it rarer even than that. The courage and discipline that carried Nick Matthew to a highly charged...
By James Zug In the fall of 1973 the first commercial squash club opened in the United States. Today, public clubs are commonplace. U.S. Squash estimates that a third of all courts in the country are in public clubs. One health club chain, Life Time Fit- ness, has forty-four clubs...