Fitness, reflexes, strength, and strategy will be on display when twenty-four professional squash players from Colombia, Egypt, England, France, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Switzerland, the United States and Wales take to the courts at The Rivers Club downtown between February 8th – 12th.
This year’s Pittsburgh Open, one of the Top 10 professional squash tournaments in the U.S., has attracted the world’s best professional squash players – including 5 of the Top 10 and 12 of the Top 20 – in their quest to earn a share of more than $75K in prize money.
This high-stakes bounce-frenzy lightning-quick racket sport is off the wall (well, technically it’s off four walls) and features fast-paced action-packed 45-60 minute games. If you’re not familiar with the sport check out this match between the top 2 players coming to Pittsburgh this year: Ali Farag (World #2) vs. Diego Elias (World #4)
Admission to the tournament is free and open to the public.
Noteworthy for this year’s event is that for the first time a film crew from SquashTV will attend and the Pittsburgh Open will be broadcast to 65,000+ digital subscribers around the world. This also means that if you can’t attend in person you can still catch the event via https://www.squash.tv/ (must pay for access). (PS. There should be free match Highlights on YouTube after the matches are played.)
Any day is a great time to catch the action, though the Quarterfinal round on Friday night also includes a Coach’s Reception event as well as a special appearance and a few words by County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and Director of Parks and Recreation Kathryn Vargas at 6:00pm. Anyone in attendance is able to participate in both/either event in addition to the squash games.
Then on Saturday around 100 amateur squash players will also compete in an amateur tournament all day making it a great day to take in a lot of squash as you wait for the Semifinal matches between 2:00pm – 4:00pm.
Location: Downtown Pittsburgh at The Rivers Club, 4th Floor, Oxford Building, 301 Grant Street
Event Cost: Free
Event Dates/Times:
- Round 1 – Wednesday, February 8th 4:30pm – 7:30pm
- Round 2 – Thursday, February 9th 4:00pm – 8:00pm
- Quarterfinal – Friday, February 10th 4:30pm – 9:30pm with Coach’s Reception
- Semifinal – Saturday, February 11th 2:00pm – 4:00pm with Amateur Tournament
- Final – Sunday, February 12th 1:00pm – 2:00pm
More Details: The Draw and The Brackets
The people, organizations, and businesses in our great city are great – especially the Pittsburgh Sports and Exhibition Authority’s Sports Event Funding program as well as event sponsors Three Rivers Capital, Laurel Communities, Baird (formerly Hefren Tillotson), Spanos Group of Raymond James, Kardean Design Flooring, CNX, Lally & Co., Royal Bank of Canada, Jennmar, CBRE, Margitai Architects, Cochran Group, Mozart Management CWP, Schneider Downs, Design Alliance, Teletracking, and Sterling Land Co.
This content was provided by a local, independent contributor to Made in PGH, a lifestyle blog.