North American Open Preview From San Francisco

The USL is proud to be a Founding Sponsor of this year's North American Open.

Below is a tournament preview from the Tournament Director, Mark Allen

Our 2007 P.S.A. North American Open tournament looks like being the most exciting yet. Favorite will undoubtedly be current world #9, John White. The hard hitting, 6’ 1” Australian, who plays under the Scottish flag, will be the player that everyone is trying to beat. John has had an incredible career so far, which includes reaching the final of both The British Open and World Open in 2002, and a brief spell as World #1 in March 2004.

Seeded two and in the bottom half of the draw will be London born, left-hander, Adrian Grant. Adrian is 26 years old and has been one of England's most industrious performers on the PSA Tour over the last few year. After a very distinguished junior career, in 2004 Grant was selected to make his senior team debut for England in the European Championships in France, where he became the first black squash player ever to represent England. The left-hander has a smooth style and a very relaxed demaenour on court that always makes him a joy to watch.

If the tournament plays out to the seeding, then Grant will match up against World #19 Mohd Iskander of Malaysia in the second of our semi-final matches. The two players are separated by just four places on the world rankings, and have met 6 times in P.S.A. competition with Grant ahead 4-2; three of the matches have gone all the way to a deciding 5th game. if they both make it, their semi-final match scheduled for Friday evening, is one not to be missed.

Shahier Razik will be our #4 seed. Shahier was a finalist in our 2004 event, and champion in 2005. His game of attrition is well suited to the Bay Club’s slow ASB courts and he will get plenty of support from our local, and vocal, crowd. I am very pleased to welcome Shahier back again and I thank him for supporting our event every year since it’s inauguration.

Liam Kenny, Eric Galvez, and Shawn Delierre; three of our four predicted quarter finalists, are returning visitors too. Eric is one of the fastest and most dynamic players on the tour, and he has played a couple of great matches here at the club. His quarter final loss to Alex Gough in 2005 was one of the best matches of the tournament. Eric’s first round match up versus Miguel Angel Rodriguez of Columbia is full of fierce latin American rivalry. Columbia and Mexico are the top two nations in South & Central America, and Galvez and Rodriguez are their countries number one players.

Once again we have a strong presence of up and coming younger players in the draw, the highest ranked being Chris Simpson of England. Chris made his breakthrough on the P.S.A. tour in November 2006 when he beat world top 20 ranked player, Graham Ryding, in the Merritt Properties Open held in Baltimore. He will be hoping for another giant killing if he makes it through to Thursday’s quarter final matches. In Wednesday’s first round matches Chris will play our only U.S. player in the draw, wild card entry, Ryan Donnegan. Win or lose the valuable P.S.A. ranking points that Ryan will collect in this tournament will add a significant boost to his current ranking of 135, and a first round win would push him up into a career high ranking inside the top 100.

Egyption squash is on an incredible high right now. with 5 players ranked in the world’s top 20, including world #1 Amr Shabana, and world #3 Ramy Ashour. Egyption born, Princeton graduate and the only ever four time winner of the College Squash Association’s Individual Championships, Yasser El Halaby, will be up against Shahier in his first match. Yasser graduated from Princeton less than a year ago, but has already climbed his way to a career high of 62 in the P.S.A. rankings. and everyone is expecting him to rise a lot higher. Our second Egyption player, Omar Elborolossy is a very experienced player that has been competing on the P.S.A. tour for 13 years. Omar reached a career high of 14 in the world in June 2001, and was a member of the first ever Egyption team to win the world team championships in 1999. Those watching our first round matches at Bay Club Marin will see Omar taking on Mohd Iskander on Wednesday May 23 at 6:00pm.

The depth of talent in this years tournament is very impressive; however few people will be betting against the hard hitting, #1 seed, John White to lift the North American Open trophy on Saturday May 26.

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