Challenger Tour Round-Up: Khaled-Jousselin Impresses on Tour Debut

Batch Open 2024 

15-year-old Amir Khaled-Jousselin made a sensational start to life on the PSA Challenger Tour, beating Paraguay’s Francesco Marcantonio in his Tour debut on day one of the Batch Open. 

A winner at this year’s French Junior Open, Khaled-Jousselin was given a wildcard entry to this event and made it count, beating a player ranked more than 500 places above him in the world to reach round two. 

Fellow French wildcard Matteo Carrouget also made the most of his opportunity after being drafted in as a late replacement the day before play started. 

19-year-old Carrouget is ranked outside the world’s top 350 and had never before won a match on the Challenger Tour, but changed that record with an impressive 3-1 win over Switzerland’s Robin Gadola. 

The day’s other big winner was England’s Will Salter, who upset compatriot Jared Carter 3-0 to record his first win in a 15k event. 

IQUW Bermuda Open 2024 

In-form Margot Prow recorded her biggest career win so far on the PSA Tour, stunning No.1 seed and World No.55 Ineta Hopton on day two of the IQUW Bermuda Open. 

Prow is ranked 95 places below Hopton in the world, but came into this event having claimed her first Challenger Tour title little more than a week ago, and will now have her sights set on another trophy here after sinking the Latvian 3-0. 

Her second-round opponent will be Mexico’s Sarahi Lopez, who needed only 13 minutes to beat Eilidh Franklin, losing only five points in total, while the other six seeded players all progressed. 

There was no such trouble for men’s No.1 seed Spencer Lovejoy, who eased past Noah Meredith 3-0, with the American leading all eight men’s seeds into the quarter-finals. 

Expression St. James Women’s 20k 2024 

Egypt’s Nour Wageeh came out on top of a five-game thriller on day one of the Expression St. James Women’s 20k, upsetting Spain’s Sofía Mateos in the process. 

Wageeh was playing her first Challenger Tour match of 2024, and had to battle back from 2-1 down to reach round two, winning 11-8, 9-11, 10-12, 11-9, 11-8 in 39 minutes. 

Fellow Egyptian Malak Taha caused the only other seedings upset on day one, beating Mary Mijas 3-0 to set up a second-round clash with Ukraine’s Alina Bushma. 

Hamdard Squashters Northern Slam 2024  

Anahat Singh kicked off her quest for a second successive PSA Tour title with a comfortable 3-0 over wildcard Unnati Tripathi, on day two of the Hamdard Squashters Northern Slam. 

The 16-year-old prodigy is the No.1 seed for this event in her hometown of Delhi, and had little trouble booking her quarter-final spot, dropping no more than five points in any of the three games. 

There was, however, a big shock in the bottom half of the women’s draw, as No.2 seed Rathika Suthanthira Seelan went down 3-0 to Shameena Riaz. 

The men’s draw saw the top seven seeds progress, but No.8 seed Vedant Patel was unable to complete the clean sweep. 

The 25-year-old had battled back from two games down against 18-year-old Ayaan Vaziralli, but fell agonisingly short of completing his comeback, losing a fifth-game tiebreak 14-12. 

Rochester ProAm 2024 

Wildcard Omar Zakaria recorded an impressive win on day one of the Rochester ProAm, beating Omar Elhadidi 3-1 to reach round two. 

Zakaria – a student at the University of Rochester – does not currently have a ranking on the PSA Tour, but made an impressive start to his week by knocking out the World No.243. 

He will be joined on day two by Chile’s Matias Lacroix, who put in a sensational display to sink Mexico’s Armando Olguin, a player with a career-high ranking of 153. 

Lacroix has never been inside the world’s top 280, but will fancy his chances of changing that after a ruthless display, in which he dropped only four points en route to an 11-3, 11-1, 11-0 win.