CHENNAI: Picture this: hundreds of fans cheering on squash players as they do battle inside an all glass court at a city mall during the upcoming Asian Championships in April. If national coach Cyrus Poncha has his way, that could become a reality.
There are plans afoot to take the prestigious five-day tournament to the Express Avenue mall. “We are looking at that option of having games at the Express Avenue,” Poncha said during a felicitation function for three youngsters who medalled during the recently held British Junior Open in Sheffield. “That’s one of the best ways of taking the game to the masses.”
He also revealed that the Squash Rackets Federation of India (SRFI) has decided to send a coach with travelling professional players.
This is an in-principle decision that awaits the ministry’s sanction. On the issue of whether Pakistan players would be seen at the event, Poncha sounded hopeful. “We have given a list of the possible countries who would take part in the event. Yes (Pakistan are one of them). The list is with the ministry as we speak.”
As hosts, India would get to name six players each (other countries to name four) on the men’s and the women’s categories. “There will be automatic qualifiers based on the PSA rankings. Maybe for the bottom slots on both sides, we could have a qualifying event,” he concluded.
Velavan Senthilkumar, Adhitya Raghavan — who wasn’t able to make it to the function — and Abhay Singh finished 1-2-3 in the Under-19 category and Poncha was all praise for them. He gave an insight into what the three had done to reach this level. “With respect to Abhay,” he said.
“I had not seen a more playful kid at the academy (they are products of the Indian Squash Academy). However, he buckled down a few years ago, cut down on his butter chicken and this is just reward for the hard work he has put in,” he regaled the audience.
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