Optasia Championship ~ Tuesday 12 to Sunday 17 March 2024

🏆 The Wimbledon Club is the place to be this week for the 2024 Optasia Championship set to feature a stellar line-up of the best male squash players in the world.

NEWSFLASH: The 2024 Optasia Championship is a wrap!

🎟️ INTERESTED IN TICKETS FOR 2025?  

Email tickets@sportonspec.co.uk with ‘Squash London alerts’ in the subject box to receive a tip-off as soon as Optasia Championship tickets go on sale, together with news of other great squash events in the capital! 

CONGRATULATIONS to Satomi Watanabe and Paul Coll the women’s and men’s champions respectively at the 2024 Optasia Championship.  New Zealand’s Coll (the world No.2) fought back from two games down to beat Egypt’s world No.1 Ali Farag 3-2 in a memorable men’s final which lasted just over 90 minutes.  Meanwhile, Watanabe produced the performance of her life to defeat the top seed and world No.4 Nele Gilis in the women’s final.  Japan’s Satomi pulled off a major surprise with a 3-0 win that saw her claim a first World Tour title.

2024 EVENT PREVIEW

The 2023 Optasia Championship was one to remember as Egypt’s Karim Abdel Gawad became a two-time winner of the tournament with a straight-game 11-4, 11-7, 11-3 victory over his fellow countryman Youssef Soliman.  Gawad superseded another Egyptian, Ali Farag, as the Optasia champion.  Farag, the current world No.1, beat Peru’s Diego Elias, the current world No.2, in the 2022 final to claim his first major title on UK soil.  

And now the Optasia Championship is back for 2024 bigger and better than before!  Once again it’s a men’s PSA World Tour Gold event and a total prize pot in excess of $100,000 will be at stake.  And for the first time a women’s PSA World Tour Bronze event has been added to the schedule.

Six days of action take place from Tuesday 12 to Sunday 17 March.  The event returns to The Wimbledon Club (just over the road from the famous tennis championships) and fittingly for SW19, Wimbledon’s second biggest sports event is staged on a tennis court, one covered in black carpet, with a bar, a TV studio, a large grandstand and an all-glass squash court on it.

👀 Read on for the ‘Ones to Watch’, the top eight seeds in the women’s and men’s draw, how to purchase tickets, daily timings and travel tips.

OPTASIA CHAMPIONSHIP – ONES TO WATCH

It’s official: men’s world No.1 Ali Farag and women’s world No.4 Nele Gilis are confirmed as the headline acts at the 2024 Optasia Championship.

In the men’s event Farag is the number one seed and returns to the tournament he won in 2022.  The 31-year-old features alongside New Zealand’s world No.3 Paul Coll.  Coll won the 2016 event and is the number two seed in 2024.  Egypt’s world No.4 Mostafa Asal and England’s world No.5 Mohamed ElShorbagy (who captured the 2017 trophy) are the third and fourth seeds respectively.

The fifth seed is defending champion Karim Abdel Gawad.  Welshman Joel Makin, Mohamed ElShorbagy’s younger brother Marwan ElShorbagy and France’s Baptiste Masotti make up the other top-eight seeded positions.

The men’s wildcard will be England’s Charlie Lee.  The 25-year-old from London upset Mohamed ElShorbagy in the second round of last year’s tournament en route to the quarter-finals.

In the women’s event Gilis is the number one seed and aiming to win her third PSA title of the season.  England’s world No.14 Sarah-Jane Perry will be going for glory as the number two seed, while Egypt’s world No.18 Nada Abbas and Japan’s world No.21 Satomi Watanabe are also amongst the title favourites.

Further British interest comes in the form of Wales’ Tesni Murphy and England’s Jasmine Hutton who is the current British champion.  They are the number five and number six seed respectively.  France’s world No.25 Melissa Alves and Egypt’s world No.34 Hana Moataz are also in contention.

Scotland’s world No.89 Alison Thomson takes the wildcard spot for the inaugural women’s event.

OPTASIA CHAMPIONSHIP – TICKETS & TIMINGS

Book your tickets now for what promises to be a memorable six days of squash at the Optasia Championship featuring the world’s top players!

🎟️ TICKETS are on sale via the ‘Get Tickets’ link.  Starting from Adults £20/U16s £10.

🎫 HOSPITALITY/VIP seat packages are available starting from £60.  Package and booking info can be viewed here.  

🏆 DAILY TIMINGS

Tuesday 12 March: Round 1 matches.

Morning Session – Door open 11.30am.  Matches start at 12 noon.  Evening Session – Doors open 5pm.  Matches start at 5.30pm.

Wednesday 13 March: Round 2 matches.  

Morning Session – Door open 11.30am.  Matches start at 12 noon.  Evening Session – Doors open 5pm.  Matches start at 5.30pm.

Thursday 14 March: Round 2 matches.

Morning Session – Door open 11.30am.  Matches start at 12 noon.  Evening Session – Doors open 5pm.  Matches start at 5.30pm.

Friday 15 March: Quarter-Finals.

Morning Session – Door open 11.30am.  Matches start at 12 noon.  Evening Session – Doors open 5pm.  Matches start at 5.30pm.pm to 9pm

Saturday 16 March: Semi-Finals.

One session: Doors open at 3pm.  Matches start at 4pm. 

Sunday 17 March: FINALS .

One session: Doors open at 3pm.  Matches start at 4pm.  Pro Squash Challenge (W) & Optasia Championship Final (M).

TRAVEL TIPS

🚊🚗 Travel tips: The Wimbledon Club is easily accessible using public transport.  Southfields tube station – on the District Line of the London Underground – is a 10 minute walk from the venue.  Wimbledon mainline station – on both the South Western Railway and Thameslink with excellent links into central London and beyond – is approximately a 20 minute walk, or short taxi ride away. Plan your journey at the Transport for London website.  If driving there is a car park at The Wimbledon Club with spaces available on a FCFS basis.  If the car park is full on-street parking is available on surrounding roads subject to local parking restrictions. 

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