Let's Talk Squash - SUSPENDED

Canuck · Prolific Contributor Joined: 28 Aug 2007 Posts: 123

It's too bad the PSA didn't just reduce their weighting on the event to make it equal to one of the many 2.5 star tournaments Pakistan holds each year, rather than removing their sanction of it outright. That way, the PSA players from elsewhere could have withdrawn and not lost too much sleep over it. But the draw was full of a lot of good Pakistani players, and it's not like those events are heavily attended by foreign players anyhow. It's a shame that they get no credit for the tournament, particularly when many of them would have been counting on it to be part of their average for the year.

It's not like they can all get into tournaments in the US easily, so while everyone wouldn't have felt perfectly safe being there, I don't think that's reason on its own to de-list the tournament. Various players are effectively blocked from attending tournaments in different parts of the world, much like Ronen Goldberg would have been in Pakistan.

squish · Prolific Contributor Joined: 28 Sep 2007 Posts: 95

examples? All are welcome in New York City.

Canuck · Prolific Contributor Joined: 28 Aug 2007 Posts: 123

Squish, I'm sure New York welcomes all, but the US government has been awfully slow dealing with some Pakistani VISA applicatons, players included, and reticent in granting many of them. I don't have time to dig up a whole bunch of examples right now, but perhaps you could just go back and look through the big tournaments in the US in the last few years. You will see almost no Pakistanis in the US Open, Windy City Open, or Tournament of Champions, for instance.

In fact, I just checked, and a grand total of two Pakistani players have played tournaments of any size in the US since January 2005. Shahid Zaman has played a number of tournments, while Khayal Muhammad Khan played in one. No one else from Pakistan has been into the country to play PSA squash during that period. I know Pakistan squash isn't at its strongest now by a long shot, but I would put this forward as exhibit A to suggest there's an issue with gaining access to the country.

I'm pretty sure I've seen other evidence on this or other squash sites about Pakistani players' challenge with gaining access to the US from tournaments, but I'll concede that I might be mixing that up in my memory with other stories about Pakistanis having trouble getting into the US in recent years.

squish · Prolific Contributor Joined: 28 Sep 2007 Posts: 95

It's just not so.

Canuck · Prolific Contributor Joined: 28 Aug 2007 Posts: 123

Could you please point out the players that I've missed out on? Or are you saying that the lack of Pakistani players in US tournaments is not indicative of anything with respect to accessibilit?. I'm not sure. Could you elaborate please?