The Tournament of Champions, considered one of the best squash tournaments on the PSA tour, begins on the 22nd January. The tournament, held in Grand Central Station in New York, is known to be a favourite among the players because of its unique location, which enables thousands of people each day to sample the squash from behind the front wall on their daily commute. There is certainly always a vibrant atmosphere among the crowd in New York and Peter Nicol has pointed out that it is one of the more potentially distracting tournaments. The former squash world number one claimed that with so much going on in the background he often found it hard to focus but that he eventually learned to enjoy playing there. (Read more on Peter Nicol’s experience at the TOC).
The 2010 draw is an exciting one, with the top 5 ranked players in the world confirming their attendance, along with James Willstrop and David Palmer from the PSA top 10. Beyond this however, there is a distinct absence of players from the top 20, with the likes of Peter Barker, Adrian Grant, Daryl Selby, Laurens Jan Anjema and others missing out. Some have suggested that the absences are due to the very heavy schedule towards the end of last year, whilst others point out that the prize money is not as enticing for the players as it is for the Qatar classic or Saudi International tournaments for example. Either way this provides opportunities for others, notably the exciting young Egyptian prosect Tarek Momen and US natives Julian Illingworth and Gilly Lane. There are also 8 places available via the qualification rounds, which will feature a draw of 32 players in itself.
The Draw
According to the seedings (taken from the december 09 PSA rankings) we can expect the quarter finals to be as follows:
Darwish v Palmer
Shabana v Willstrop
El Hindi v Matthew
Ashour v Gaultier
Before this stage however, Amr Shabana will have to overcome Alister Walker, who he lost to in Egypt last September and Wael El Hindi should have a tough time against the Australian Stewart Boswell. Nevertheless, we are set to see some huge match ups from an early stage in the tournament with the bottom half of the draw looking particularly tough, consisting of Gaultier, Ashour and Matthew, who are all grouped together. The form book suggests that Ashour is favourite for the title in New York, as do the January rankings, but it will be interesting to see how his adversaries start the year given that many of them were injured towards the end of last year but have had the christmas break to recover.
View the full draw here.
Read more about the Tournament of Champions.
Highlights from the TOC 2009:
