Sky Sports Agrees New Deal to Broadcast PSA World Series Squash Finals

Sky Sports has agreed a new deal to show the ATCO PSA World Series Squash Finals in January 2013 from The Queen’s Club in London. 

The highlight of the squash calendar, the $110,000 ATCO PSA World Series Finals – from 2-6 January – will feature the eight players who have earned the most points from the elite PSA World Series championships in 2012. 

Despite one event still remaining – the Qatar PSA World Championship, which gets underway in Doha later this week – England’s world numbers one and two James Willstrop and Nick Matthew, plus leading Egyptian Ramy Ashour and France’s twice winner of the title Gregory Gaultier, have already earned their places in the prestigious event. 

Sky Sports will broadcast live coverage of the semi-finals and final on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 January. There will also be coverage of both the semis and final of the women’s WSA World Series Finals. 

Widely regarded as one of the most spectacular matches ever televised, the 2012 PSA final saw Egypt’s four-time world champion Amr Shabana ultimately triumph over Frenchman Gaultier to win his first ever squash title on British soil. 

“Last January’s coverage of the Finals was extremely well received throughout the squash world and we are delighted to extend the live coverage on Sky Sports into a second season,” said PSA CEO Alex Gough. 

“We were able to showcase of all the improvements we have made in televising squash and the ‘rubber-stamp’ approval of Sky Sports will help a lot towards our case of inclusion into the 2020 Olympic Games,” added the former world number five. 

Barney Francis, managing director of Sky Sports, said: “This announcement reinforces our commitment to offering a wide variety of live sports for our customers. Sky Sports caters for a broad range of diverse content and our recent rights renewals give us the strongest line up of live sport for our viewers to watch at home or on the move.” 

Sky Sports will work in tandem with SquashTV, the PSA’s dedicated online and TV operation launched just three years ago.