Wildcards announced for DPD Open

Dutch squash champion Milou van der Heijden has been granted the wildcard for the DPD Open Squash 2019, which will take place in Eindhoven from April 9-14.

The 28-year old van der Heijden has been the highest ranked player from the Netherlands on the PSA Women’s World Rankings for several years and claimed her fourth national squash title earlier this month by defeating compatriot Tessa ter Sluis in the final of the DPD Dutch National Squash Championships.

In addition, the World No. 31 has been born and raised in the province of Brabant, where the prestigious PSA World Tour Gold event starts in seven weeks’ time.

If Van der Heijden makes the main draw on her own merits, as a result of her position on the PSA World Ranking, the wildcard will be given to Ter Sluis, the 24-year old World No. 91 from Breda.

Thijs Roukens (PSA-285) and Roshan Bharos (PSA-212) are still in the race for the highly-sought-after wildcard in the men’s division. The 20-year old Roukens and 24-year-old Bharos will go head-to-head in a special DPD Open play-off match on March 29 to determine the last available place in the men’s draw.

The DPD Open Squash 2019 will be played at a purposely built squash arena at the new headquarters of DPD Nederland which is part of the DPD Group, the second-largest international parcel delivery network in Europe. Some first round matches will also take place at Squashtime, a 15-court facility in Eindhoven.

A prize money fund of $215,000, split equally between both genders, is available for the tournament making it the second-largest European squash event on the PSA Tour in 2019. Consequently, the DPD Open is expected to attract a strong line-up of top-ranked players from around the globe. Soon-to-be World No. 1 Ali Farag and World No.4 Nour El Tayeb, have already confirmed their participation.

Tickets for the DPD Open are proving popular amongst squash fans in the Netherlands (and abroad) and are available through Ticketmaster.

More information about the event can be found on the official website, Facebook and Instagram