LONDON: The PSA World Tour has confirmed that for the first time in the history of squash, all its Platinum level events will be declaring equal prize money for men and women. The 2018 Hong Kong Squash Open is the last to be added on the list, with the US Open, Tournament of Champions, El Gouna International and British Open previously following this diktat.
The Hong Kong event, which will take place from 19-25 November, will be offering $329,000 as prize money this year. The news comes after the Professional Squash Association (PSA) released figures in July confirming that the pay gap between male and female players on the PSA Tour dropped by almost a third during the 2017-18 season compared to the 2016-17 campaign.
“Since merging with the Women’s Squash Association (WSA) in 2015, the PSA have been committed to achieving equality in prize money and playing opportunities for our male and female athletes, and we are pleased to see that the Hong Kong Open has joined our other Platinum tournaments in offering equal prize money,” PSA CEO Alex Gough said.
“The Hong Kong Open is one of the longest-running tournaments on the PSA Tour and we would like to thank Hong Kong Squash for their hard work in ensuring that there will be parity in earnings for the 2018 edition.”
In addition to prize money, a place at the PSA World Tour Finals is also on offer, with the winners of the tournament earning a coveted berth at the season-ending event. Action from every round of the tournament will be shown live on SQUASHTV (Rest of World) and Eurosport Player (Europe Only), while the semi-finals and finals will be shown live on mainstream broadcast channels around the world, including BT Sport, beIN Sports, Fox Sports Australia and Astro.
