Kinetic Women’s Challenger Preview: Navani Excited For First Challenger Tour Event

Following on from last week’s men’s event, the women take centre stage at the Kinetic 5k Challenger in Florida, United States.

The Challenger 5 level competition will take place at the Kinetic Indoor Racquet Club in Boynton Beach, Florida, and will feature 16 women aiming to take home the crown come Friday evening.

Malaysia’s Wen Li Lai will be the top seed for the tournament, with Canada’s Hannah Blatt, Frenchwoman Julia Le Coq and Japan’s Erisa Sano Herring as the rest of the top four seeds.

Canada’s Sara Khan, Ecuador’s Maria Moya, Egyptian junior Hana Ismail and Pakistani Noorena Shams will make up the rest of the seeded eight players, while there will be three Americans in the draw on home soil.

Natalie de Champlain will join juniors Anna Shumway and Riya Navani as the three home hopes in the tournament. We spoke to Navani prior to the competition starting, and with important junior tournaments in the near future, she is hoping to get some good work in prior to those events.

“I am pretty happy with my squash right now. At the moment, I am focused on training for big junior tournaments like the US Junior Open and British Junior Open coming up next month,” she explained.

“Obviously, I do want to aim for good results in both of those tournaments so I am trying to get a few good weeks of training in before that.”

Navani’s first appearance on Tour came in the PSA World Tour Silver level Oracle NetSuite Open, where she faced off against Hong Kong’s Chan Sin Yuk. Although she lost in the opening round, she learnt a lot from the experience.

“Playing the Oracle Netsuite Open was incredible. The experience was unmatched and obviously a great learning point in finding out how high the level of squash is among the pros,” Navani said.

“I learned a lot about aspects of my game that I need to work on and a lot about what life on tour is like. Being able to play with and spend time with squash players of that caliber is such a rare experience and I’m so glad I was able to be a part of that.”

Following that experience in San Francisco, the Kinetic 5k Challenger will be Navani’s first outing on the Challenger Tour, and it is one she is very much looking forward to.

“I am honestly so excited for this event. Regardless of the result and outcome, I am excited to play some good matches and enjoy the experience of playing this PSA event. I’m sure I will end the tournament with a ton of learning points and much more experience which is the most important part,” she explained.

“Playing on home soil is always such an advantage and is a huge plus for me. Having represented Team USA in many events, there is lots of pride associated with representing America and it’s definitely something I’m very proud of. It always gives me a lot of pride to know that I am representing something bigger than myself and to know that the crowd will be on my side!”

The American currently occupies the World No.181 spot, and she is hoping that more exposure to the Tour can help to improve her game, and with it, her ranking in the future.

“So, unfortunately, I am not inside the top 100 in rankings yet but I do hope to be soon! My aim is definitely to just try and play as many tournaments as possible to get as much PSA exposure as I can,” the American said.

“I aspire to play professionally throughout the rest of my high school and college career as well. In the next 12 months, my goal is to break into the top 100 rankings and start getting into the later rounds of tournaments where I can play some of the best in the world and improve my game.”

The event takes place from Tuesday, November 22 to Friday, November 25 at the Kinetic Indoor Racquet Club in Boynton Beach, Florida. Follow the PSA Challenger Tour on Twitter and Facebook for daily updates from the event.

First Round Draw: Kinetic 5k Challenger (Women’s)
[1] Wen Li Lai (MAS) v Emilia Falconi (ECU)
Riya Navani (USA) v [7] Hana Ismail (EGY)
[8] Noorena Shams (PAK) v Anna Shumway (USA)
Mary Mijas (GUA) v [3] Julia Le Coq (FRA)
[4] Erisa Sano Herring (JPN) v Sana Bahadar (PAK)
Risa Sugimoto (JPN) v [5] Sara Khan (CAN)
[6] Maria Moya (ECU) v Natalie de Champlain (USA)
Hannah Guthrie (CAN) v [2] Hannah Blatt (CAN)