Challenger Events
Karakal Green Squash Tour to Return in 2024
The Karakal Green Squash Tour will return in 2024, bigger and better than ever before, with eight events set to feature across eight different French towns and cities.
As with last year’s Green Squash Tour, the tournaments will all take place inside a three-month time span, aiming to minimise the environmental impact of excessive travel, and provide an opportunity for players to play multiple events close together.
This year, the action gets underway in Brittany, with the 1er Open International SKODA – XO CONSEIL Quimper kicking things off on September 25th.
That men’s 3k event is one of three new competitions on the Green Squash Tour for 2024, alongside another Brittany-based tournament, the Simply the Brest Open, which takes place in November.
Also new to the Tour this season but on the other side of France is the second event on the schedule, the B&H Immobilier – Open EVAE Feminin Strasbourg, taking place close to the German border in the city of Strasbourg.
Attention then turns to the west coast of France and the seaside town of Lagord, a gateway to the Bay of Biscay near the tourist hotspot of La Rochelle.
The Open de Lagord was the biggest event in last year’s Green Squash Tour as a men’s 30k, and returns this year with the same prize pool, only this time split between men and women as a 15k event for both.
This will be the fourth edition of a PSA event in Lagord, but the first to include a women’s draw, with home favourites Baptise Masotti and Auguste Dussourd winning the last two editions.
Following the 4th Open de Lagord is another tournament returning from 2023, the 2ème Open International Féminin de Couzeix/Limoges.
A 6k women’s event 12 months ago that was won by Torrie Malik, the competition has doubled its status for 2024, becoming a 12k set to attract a host of top-100 players.
Following that is another tournament that was won by a member of the Malik family in 2023, the PSA Gradignan, which saw Torrie’s older brother Curtis emerge victorious last year.
Like the Open International Féminin de Couzeix/Limoges, the PSA Gradignan has also had an increase in prize money this year, jumping from a men’s 12k to a men’s 15k, and will be followed by the Open International Niort Venise Verte, another returning event in one of the more picturesque regions of France.
Venise Verte – which translates as ‘Green Venice’ – is a marshland nature reserve situated between Niort and the Atlantic coast, offering canoeing, kayaking and even gondoliers, though attention will be fixed firmly on the courts of Squash du Marais during the third week of November.
A return to Brittany for the first edition of the Simply the Brest Open – arguably the best named event on the PSA Tour – takes place the following week, before the Tour heads north for its eighth and final competition, the PSA Hauts De France – Wam.
Taking centre stage in the outskirts of Lille under the shadow of the Belgian border, the PSA Hauts De France will join the Open de Lagord in adding a women’s competition for the first time in 2024, becoming a mixed 12k event after a successful debut as a men’s draw last year.
Further information regarding livestreaming and media coverage of the individual events will be confirmed nearer the time.
Green Squash Tour schedule:
Open International de Quimper 2024 | September 25-29 | Men’s 3k
B&H Immobilier – Open EVAE Feminin Strasbourg 2024 | October 9-13 | Women’s 6k
4th Open de Lagord 2024 | October 15-19 | Men’s & Women’s 15k
2ème Open International Féminin de Couzeix/Limoges 2024 | October 22-26 | Women’s 12k
PSA Gradignan 2024 | October 30-November 3 | Men’s 15k
Open International Niort Venise Verte 2024 | November 12-16 | Men’s 15k
Simply the Brest Open 2024 | November 19-23 | Men’s 12k
PSA Des Hauts De France- Wam 2024 | November 27-December 1 | Men’s & Women’s 12k
