Challenger Events
Solnicky & Amani Claim Challenger Tour Players of the Month Titles
Czech Republic’s Jakub Solnicky and Malaysia’s Ainaa Amani have been named as the Challenger Tour Players of the Month for April after both picking up titles within the month.
Solnicky featured in two events in April, firstly reaching the semi-finals at the BRESS Breda Open, losing out to eventual winner Velevan Senthilkumar.
He then moved on to the Batch Open in Paris, France where he came into the event seeded outside the top eight. Solnicky recorded two 3-0 victories over New Zealand’s Elijah Thomas and Wales’ Owain Taylor to reach the quarter finals. He then overcame compatriot and No.2 seed Daniel Mekbib in four games and then defeated France’s Maceo Levy by the same scoreline for a spot in the final.
After dropping the first game to Spain’s Ivan Perez in the final, the Czech battled back to tae the following three games and claim his second title of his career.
Malaysia’s Ainaa Amani enjoyed a brilliant month on the PSA Tour as she not only claimed her second title of her career, but she also successfully booked her place in the PSA World Championships after being one of the six to progress through the qualifying event in Birmingham.
The title that she picked up was the Vikram Goyal SRFI Open 2023 10k event in Delhi, India. The No.3 seed progressed through to the semi-finals where she defeated top seed Cheng Nga Ching before beating Egypt’s No.7 seed Haya Ali in a tight three games.
In the World Championships Qualifying event, Amani needed just 16 minutes to beat Nour Heikal and then overcame German duo Saskia Beinhard and Katerina Tycova to book her place in the biggest event of the season.
Amani rounded out the month with another final appearance at the RC Pro Series in St.Louis, USA. The Malaysian was unseeded and managed to defeat No.5 seed Jessica Turnbull from Australia in RD1 before downing top seed Nour Aboulmakarim in four games to reach the final four. Another win over Haya Ali sent Amani into the final, where she lead Egypt’s Salma Eltayeb 2-0 but couldn’t convert the match, losing 3-2.
