Pro Draw Confirmed for New Poly Prep Tournament, Amateur Registration Open by Corey Modeste December 20, 2015
- The Poly Prep school in Brooklyn just opened a new squash facility
and will inaugurate it with a pro/am squash tournament in early
February. The (Feb. 5-7) is named after the school's famed mascot
and will have skill-level amateur draws as well as a men's professional
tournament. An early registration discount is now in effect for
the amateur draws.
Poly Prep's new squash facility has nine courts, making it not only the
sole high school or university in the city to have courts, but also the
largest squash facility of any kind in the five boroughs. In fact, the
venue is the 2nd largest in New York state and only Hamilton College
has more singles courts. Two of the courts will be all-glass show
courts used in top professional tournaments. Amateurs will finally have
the chance to play on the kind of court previously only available to
top professionals.
The lineup for the men's pro draw is confirmed and headlined by world
#16 Ryan Cuskelly. The Australian and current Westchester local
had long been one of his country's best on the PSA tour but took his
game to a new level in 2015. He has four PSA tour wins this year,
capped off with a quarterfinal appearance in Qatar - an event in which
beat two top 10 players. He will be joined by the 2015 Las Vegas
Open champion, #38 Campbell Grayson and #44 Alister Walker. The pro
lineup will also include Ramit Tandon, #71 Chris Hanson, #101 Arthur
Gaskin, #168 Clinton Leeuw and Hamza Bukhari.
The Blue Devil Challenge tournament will be run by Corey Modeste, Jamal
Callender and Poly Prep coaches Ben Oliner and Meredith Quick.
"We are really pleased to introduce the facility to the squash
community with a tournament" said men's coach Ben Oliner. "There
is more squash activity at Poly Prep that the public might be aware of
and we would love to get the word out." In addition to the Poly
Prep squash teams, Peter Nicol has been running Nicol Champion's
Academy for top juniors at the school for the past year. CitySquash
also opened a Brooklyn chapter based at the school.
