CHENNAI
Unlike the nomenclature of other sporting disciplines, the Squash World Cup, to be held at the all-glass show court inside the Express Avenue Mall here from June 13 to 17, doesn’t have a great tradition to show for.
In its fourth edition—the last time it was held in 2011 in Chennai—the championships, a mixed team competition will, nevertheless, have some exciting additions to make it quite exciting.
With the season-ending PSA World Tour finals scheduled in Cairo, Egypt from June 20, the top players have decided to give the World Cup the miss.
The organisers believe that the few tweaks they have attempted would help in taking the sport to the masses.
All the matches will be played to a best of five games to seven points (it’s 11 points in general).
At 6-6, the game will still be played to seven points. In a tie, there will be four matches wherein the winner of the match between top seeds of opposing teams will get two points and the contest between second seeds will be one.
In the possibility of a draw in a tie, the winning team will be decided by the greater positive difference between games won and lost.
The eight teams—Egypt, India, Hong Kong, Japan, South Africa, Malaysia, Australia & Colombia—have some good competitive players inside the world’s top 100.
Egypt is the top seed while India is seeded two. Pitted in Group B, India’s toughest challenge will come from Japan that has in its ranks Satomi Watanabe, ranked World No.18 in the women’s section and solid players in Ryunosuke Tsukue and Tomotake Endo (men).
Lottery
India’s Saurav Ghosal, Joshna Chinappa and Abhay Singh felt the new format with seven points is like a lottery and that upsets will always be around the corner.
“The new point system favours both the players,” said Joshna, India’s best women’s player. “There is not much room for errors. Everybody will be more aggressive, but it will be fun and exciting.”
Abhay, India’s rising star, said “the seven-point thing might be a bit tricky.” Saurav, World No.17, felt the new format will be a“bit alien” to all the teams and earlier they adapt the better it is.
India will take on Hong Kong (the other teams are Japan & South Africa) in its first group match on Tuesday.
