In a landmark decision, the Professional Squash Association (PSA) has announced that equal prize money will be awarded for the first time across both the draws at next year’s PSA Men’s and Women’s World Championships to be held in Manchester, England from 9 -17, 2017. That is indeed a much welcome move by the governing body of a sport that has been striving for parity in pay for quite some time.
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The winners are set to take home over $45,000 each and this is also just the second time after 2011 Rotterdam that the pinnacle event of both the sexes will be held concurrently. The initial rounds of this week-long tournament will be staged at The National Squash Centre and Manchester Central will host it from quarter-finals onwards.
In a PSA release, the organization’s CEO Alex Gough called this much-lauded watershed moment ‘a huge step forward that everyone in the sport can be proud of’.
Squash thus follows in the footsteps of its fellow racquet sport, tennis where each of the four Grand Slams now pays both its champions equal prize money after years of painstaking campaigns by the players.
Closer home, the former India No. 1 Dipika Pallikal has been a long-standing advocate of equality and has even opted out of the National Championships for the last four years, expressing her resentment over the disparity that still exists. After her firm stance on this issue over the years, the 19th ranked player would surely be delighted to learn this news.
