Indian sports wrap, July 31: Six-city tour aims to boost India’s Olympic squash prospects

SQUASH

India to host six PSA Challenger Tour events in 2025-26 season

In a boost to the country’s squash ambitions, especially with the sport’s debut at the LA 2028 Olympics, Squash Rackets Federation of India (SRFI), in partnership with HCL, launched the HCL India Squash Tour 2025-26 on Thursday.

The Professional Squash Association (PSA) Challenger Tour series in India has been expanded to six cities.

HCL Squash India Tour 2025-26 Schedule:

• Jaipur (PSA Challenger 9K event) – August 4-8 (Sawai Man Singh Stadium)
• Mumbai (PSA Challenger 9K event) – September 8-12
• Bengaluru (PSA Challenger 6K event) – September 26-31
• Chennai (PSA Challenger 15K event) – December 1-5
• Ahmedabad (PSA Challenger 6K event) – January 27-31, 2026
• Delhi (PSA Challenger 6K event) – February 3-7, 2026

All tournaments will award equal prize money to men and women, with champions taking home USD 15,000, 9,000, or 6,000, depending on the event tier. Each leg will follow a 24-player knockout format, with the top eight seeds receiving byes into the second round. The Tour is open to PSA-registered players aged 15 and above.

SRFI also announced that the Senior National Squash Championship will be held at the Dhyanchand Stadium in New Delhi from August 23 to 28.

-Team Sportstar

Indian boys’ team wins bronze medal at World Squash Junior Championships

Indian boys’ team finished its campaign at the World Squash Junior Championships in Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday with a bronze medal.

The Indian team lost 2-0 to USA in the semifinals.

Alexander Dartnell beat Sandhesh Pr 3-0 (11-3, 11-2, 11-5) in the opening match before Jack Elriani took down K S Arihant 3-0 (11-6, 11-4, 11-7) to seal USA’s spot in the summit clash.

-Team Sportstar

HOCKEY

30 teams to feature in Junior Women National hockey championship

The 15th edition of the Hockey India Junior Women National Championship will begin here from Friday with 30 teams vying for top honours.

The tournament, to be played in the newly-introduced division-based format, will conclude on August 12, and the teams will be divided into three segments — A, B and C.

The two bottom-placed teams in A and B divisions will be relegated to B and C groups respectively for the tournament’s next year’s edition.

Meanwhile, the top two teams of B and C divisions will be promoted to A and B clusters respectively.

Division A comprises top 12 teams in the country and will feature defending champions Hockey Jharkhand in Pool A, last year’s runners-up Hockey Madhya Pradesh in Pool B, and second runners-up Hockey Haryana in Pool C.

Meanwhile, Division B and Division C will comprise teams that are not in the top 12 national rankings, fighting to climb the ranks.

Hockey India President Dilip Tirkey said, “After the Senior Nationals and the Sub Junior Nationals, the new format will now be implemented in the Junior Nationals tournament. We have had really positive outcomes from both the Senior and Sub Junior teams and are confident that the junior domestic players will be equally pleased playing this new format.”

-Team Sportstar