The first-ever tennis-like circuit for squash in India, the four-legged JSW Indian Challenger Circuit for men and women will be held next month in three cities -- Jaipur, Mumbai and Chennai --, it was announced here today.
"For the first time four back-to-back PSA and WSA events will be held in India. This will help upcoming Indian players to get experience of playing against top international players and getting valuable circuit points (which will, in turn, help in improving their world rankings) in their own backyard," said ex-national champion and PSA's Asia representative Ritwik Bhattacharya at a press conference here today.
The circuit starts on October 2 at Jaipur and ends at Chennai where the finals are to be held on October 29. The individual tournament dates are: Oct 2-5 at Jaipur Club; Oct 9-12 in Mumbai (Juhu-Vile Parle Gymkhana); Oct 16-19 at NSCI, Mumbai; October 26-29 at Chennai (ISA Squash Academy).
Each circuit event will have a 16-man and 16-woman draw, comprising 11 direct entrants, a wild card and four qualifiers, which would be held prior to the main draw over two days.
While all the four men's PSA events will carry a prize money of USD 10,000 with the winner gaining 175 points each, the first three women's WSA events will be USD 5,000 and the finals USD 10,000 with the winner gaining 350 points each.
"A winner of all four events can see his world rank jump substantially. We expect those ranked 40 and above globally taking part and it includes Harinder Pal Singh and Mahesh Mangaonkar," said Ritwik, who is conducting the event through a joint venture Ivy Sport with Raj Arora under the overall auspices of the Squash Rackets Federation of India.
