09/09/2020
Confirmed PSA Schedule
PSA Confirms PSA World Tour Schedule for September and
October
The
Professional Squash Association (PSA) can confirm that the Manchester
Open, CIB PSA World Tour Finals and CIB Egyptian Open - which were
announced as part of the provisional PSA World Tour calendar on August 6
- will go ahead as scheduled.
The six-month suspension of the PSA World Tour due to the global
COVID-19 pandemic will end on Wednesday September 16 at the Manchester
Open, with a number of the world’s leading players lining up at
Manchester’s National Squash Centre to battle for the PSA World Tour
Silver title.
The CIB PSA World Tour Finals then takes place at Cairo’s Mall of Arabia
between September 28 - October 3, with Cairo then hosting the CIB
Egyptian Open, PSA World Tour Platinum event a week later.
The entry lists for the Manchester Open and the CIB PSA World Tour
finals will be released next week. All tournaments will abide by strict
protocols with relation to health and safety, international travel
policies and social distancing guidelines, while there will be no fans
on-site at the Manchester Open.
COVID-19 protocols in place include attending the event will be tested
for COVID-19 before travelling and must produce a negative result.
Upon arrival into the country players and event staff will be tested
again and a strict tournament bubble will be put in place for accredited
people. Testing will continue to take place every four days during
tournaments with strict measures in place at all venues to keep all
participants safe.
All three tournaments will be shown live on
SQUASHTV (rest
of world),
Eurosport Player (Europe only)
the
official Facebook page of the PSA World Tour (rest of world) and the
channels of contracted broadcasters.
A provisional calendar remains in place for November - December 2020,
with four Platinum events (Qatar Classic, El Gouna International,
Everbright Sun Hung Kai Hong Kong Open and the CIB Black Ball Open)
planned to take place before the end of the year.
PSA World Tour Schedule: September 2020 – October 2020
Manchester Open (Silver): September 16-22 in Manchester, England
CIB PSA World Tour Finals (Finals): September 28 – October 3 in Cairo,
Egypt
CIB Egyptian Open (Platinum): October 10-17 in Cairo, Egypt
PSA World Tour Provisional Schedule: November 2020 - December 2020
Qatar Classic (Platinum): November 1-7 in Doha, Qatar
El Gouna International (Platinum): November 14-20 in El Gouna, Egypt
Everbright Sun Hung Kai Hong Kong Open (Platinum): November 30 –
December 6 in Hong Kong
CIB Black Ball Open (Platinum): December 12-18 in Cairo, Egypt
The provisional calendar is subject to change and a further update will
be issued at the end of September. A number of PSA World Tour events
have also been provisionally confirmed for 2021, including the
rescheduled Allam British Open, and these will be announced later this
year.
The first PSA Challenger Tour event following the tour suspension will
be the Expression Networks Nolan and Liam's Tournament in Prague, Czech
Republic on Thursday September 10. Domestic and limited international
participation Challenger Tour events will be sanctioned from that date
onwards. Tournaments on the WSF & PSA Satellite Tour are being
sanctioned as of Thursday August 27 onwards.
"We’re delighted to confirm that professional squash is now in a
position to resume and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of
our players, tournament promoters and commercial partners for their
support during what has been an unprecedented global situation," said
PSA Chief Executive Alex Gough.
"We have worked incredibly hard with all of the relevant stakeholders in
order to schedule these three tournaments. While the remainder of the
2020 PSA World Tour calendar remains provisional at this time, we are
continuing to have positive conversations with tournament promoters and
remain hopeful that we will soon be able to confirm our plans for
November and December.
"It goes without saying that the health and safety of all players and
on-site staff is at the forefront of our thinking and we have put in
place robust COVID-19 measures at our PSA World Tour events to mitigate
against potential risks.
"It’s been too long since our athletes have had the opportunity to
entertain us all with their incredible athleticism and tremendous skill
and I look forward to watching them all return to action this month. Of
course, with certain events not having spectators to cheer them on it
will not be the same, but we will endeavour to showcase the very best of
the action via SQUASHTV, our social media channels and the channels of
our contracted media partners, so fans don’t miss a thing."
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