Squash and the Reopening of Professional Sports

The sports calendar is beginning to come back to life, with Korean baseball, German soccer, and PGA golf replacing Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong documentaries. Last week, plans were announced for the return of the NBA at the end of the summer. Most sports’ proposals involve shortened seasons and no spectators. Some involve bubbles where competitors can quarantine until the competition ends.

Not surprisingly, global sports — those where competitors and events are dispersed around the globe — are facing substantial challenges reopening. International travel and quarantine restrictions are confounding the reopening plans, forcing sports to amend or abandon their plans.

Formula1’s season will begin with eight races in Europe (two each in Austria and at Silverstone, where many of the teams are based). In March and April, China’s CBA basketball league was scheduled to be the first sport to reopen until the challenges of recalling its international players derailed the plans. Play resumes there this week without many of its international players. While golf’s return may seem to suggest a light at the end of the tunnel, most of golf’s top players reside in the United States where all of the PGA events will be held through the end of the summer.

Tennis aims to return to play later in the season with the U.S. Open taking its traditional place in the calendar around Labor Day. The USTA’s plan calls for a bubble concept where players will be quarantined in a hotel close to the venue. Players will be limited to one support staff. As part of the proposal, the Western & Southern Open, usually held in Cincinnati before the U.S. Open, will also be held in the National Tennis Center. There is resistance to this plan, especially from the top players.

Badminton returns (with spectators!) the beginning of September. Table Tennis’s plans for reopening include the conversion of at least one European tournament into a non-ranking event because of travel concerns. Ranking tournaments would begin later in the fall.

Where does Squash fit in?

PSA announced its suspension due to the coronavirus pandemic on March 13, with the three ongoing tournaments completed in the days following the announcement. The suspension prompted the immediate postponement of World Tour events in Switzerland (The Grasshopper Cup) and Egypt (El Gouna), followed shortly thereafter by the postponement of the Manchester and British Opens.

Initially, the fall season looked crowded with the planned rescheduling of some or all of those events, joining the usual fall calendar: Netsuite Open, Qatar Classic and US Open. While there’s still cautious optimism that the tour can return in some form before Christmas, a full calendar seems unlikely.

On June 6th, John Nimick announced the cancellation of the Oracle Netsuite Open set to take place in September in San Francisco, saying they “cannot sustain the event economics with CDC regulated social distance requirements at our venue, limiting our audience to 25% per session." (Postponing the outdoor tournament is difficult due to weather concerns later in the year.) Four days later, PSA announced the extension of the tour suspension until mid-August citing international travel, social distancing guidelines and potential for quarantine measures.

Squash is a truly international game, where both the men’s and women’s top 25 have players from more than ten different countries. Pre-COVID19, the 2019 men’s calendar had top players moving between platinum tournaments in Philadelphia and Cairo, the world championships in Qatar, and the world team championships in Washington, D.C. all within nine weeks. A tour calendar with events in different countries spaced only weeks apart may not be possible in the near term.