Others

Concerns rise for Asia's squash players

LOW Wee Wern is concerned that the Professional Squash Association (PSA) plan to push ahead with their tour and world ranking points will severely affect players based in Asia.

The PSA are working on the restart of the PSA Tour which has been suspended since April due to Covid-19 and also plan to unfreeze the world rankings, starting October.

Under a new format, PSA will remove the divisor — which previously divided the total number of points a player accumulated over a 12-month period by the number of tournaments for an average score.

Instead, points will be made up of a cumulative total consisting the top 10 tournaments for men and top nine for women.

However, women's national No 1 and World No 22 Wee Wern believes it may prove to be a handicap for Asian players.

This is due to the fact that Malaysia has its Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) extended until Dec 31 while Hong Kong and India, both Asian powerhouses, are not quite in the green just yet.

"In Malaysia we're stuck until Dec 31 at the earliest and we don't even know if we can travel after that," said Wee Wern.

"And since we cannot leave the country and others can't really come in here without mandatory quarantine periods, this year is pretty much a write-off already.

"And even though the PSA have also confirmed the Hong Kong Open for December, I don't think it's a viable option either.

"The quarantine rules will apply to us even if we leave for one tournament and as far as I know, even the Hong Kong players are quarantined within their training centre.

"It's going to be hard to see how badly our rankings will be affected in the months to come. We'll have to see how PSA handle the Manchester Open (Sept 16-22) first.

"But even then, it's a blow to us in Asia because most of the tournaments are either in Europe or in Egypt. And those who are competing are only those based in Europe and Egypt."

Most Popular
Related Article
Says Stories