KPMG Squash League serves off on Thursday
WITH ONLY two days left before the start of the 2024 KPMG Squash League set to run from February 29-April 19 at the Liguanea Club President of the Squash Association, Karen Anderson, stated that the upcoming tournament should spring some surprises.
“I think we’re going to have some exciting matches as we’re seeing some strong teams who have registered for the event. We should also have some upsets so we’re extremely excited to see how the matches will play out over the two months,” she stated.
Anderson explained that based on the handicap system in place, it would give a junior player the opportunity to rub shoulders against some of the country’s senior and better players.
“It ( KPMG Squash) gives persons the opportunity to play against the bigger guns, national representatives, and also gives them the chance to hone their skills against the better players. It’s a handicap system, so we try to level the playing field so that every player gets the chance to play against each other. This is what we want, we want them to play and compete in the sport that we all love,” Anderson explained.
Rajan Trehan, country managing partner of title sponsor KPMG, shared that over the years they have seen first hand the growth of the league. He added that based on this growth it’s safe to say that KPMG will be supporting squash for the ‘long haul’.
“KPMG has been sponsoring this league for 24 years. Over this period, it has developed into a really strong league and we are proud as we believe in the development of youth as well as sports and we’ve adopted squash. It’s a lot of learning for the young players as well as the experienced players whenever they face the younger players. Based on what we’ve seen and how it has worked out we are going to be here for the long haul,” Trehan said.
One of the country’s leading female players, Sanjana Nallapati, revealed that her squash game rose after last year’s staging and while she’s in a wait and see process on how she will perform this time around, she’s hopeful that she will perform to her best ability.
“Yes, it (squash game) was definitely better after the KPMG League because we had a bunch of matches with games going up to 21. Even though it’s a best of three format it tests your fitness quite a bit. We will have to wait and see as I don’t really know but it should be some really good squash,” Nallapati said.