World No. 4 Amanda Sobhy will lead the $110,000 MARIGOLD Singapore Squash Open draw as the top seed this week as five Americans enter the nation’s first PSA Gold tournament, November 15-20, at the OCBC Arena.
The PSA World Tour focus shifts from back-to-back tournaments in New Zealand last week–the inaugural Nation’s Cup and New Zealand Open–to southeast Asia, which is set to host a series of four major events over the next month and leading with the Singapore Open and finishing with the Women’s World Team Championship in December.
In her first PSA appearance since the U.S. Open last month, Sobhy will be in search of her second title of the season following her Oracle NetSuite Open triumph in San Francisco. Her path to the title will be a difficult one however, with U.S. teammate and world No. 11 Olivia Fiechter seeded to meet Sobhy in the quarterfinals on Friday, November 18. Fiechter will await the winner of Belgium’s Nele Gilis or Egypt’s Mariam Metwally in the second round Tuesday, November 16.
Following their New Zealand Open appearances last week, world No. 18 Sabrina Sobhy and world No. 20 Olivia Blatchford Clyne are both set for first-round action Tuesday, November 15.
Blatchford Clyne will take on twenty-year-old Malaysian Aifa Azman on the glass court at 1:45pm local time, 12:45pm ET, for a chance to face Egypt’s three seed Nour El Tayeb in the second round.
Sabrina Sobhy, who reached the quarterfinals in New Zealand, will face French international and Penn graduate Melissa Alves at the Kallang Center at 5pm local time, 4am ET.
World No. 28 Shahjahan Khan is the lone Team USA representative in the men’s draw and will face Switzerland’s world No. 14 Nicolas Mueller in the first round at the Kallang Center at 12:45pm local time, 11:45pm ET.
Watch all of the glass court action live on www.squash.tv and follow more tournament coverage on singaporesquashopen.com.
Following the completion of the Singapore Open, the PSA Tour heads to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, next week, November 22-26, where Fiechter is set to lead the $52,500 Malaysian Open draw as the top seed and will be joined by U.S. teammates Shahjahan Khan and Faraz Khan.