Brownell Scores Home Upset As PSA Marks Half Century At Windy City Open

The 2024 Windy City Open presented by the Walter Family kicked off at the University Club of Chicago as the Professional Squash Association (PSA) celebrated 50 years of professional squash.

On February 21, 1974, the International Squash Players Association - the precursor to the PSA - was founded to govern the men's professional game. Now, the PSA Tour is a thriving professional squash circuit with the men's and women's games administered by a unified governing body.

The Windy City Open is one of eight PSA World Tour Platinum events to take place during the 2023-24 season and 32 matches took place on day one of the prestigious event, with men's US No.1 Timothy Brownell scoring an opening day victory over Indian veteran Saurav Ghosal to mark his Windy City debut with a win.

"Saurav is one of my heroes," Brownell said afterwards.

"Ever since I saw him play Ramy Ashour in the World Team Championships about 10-15 years ago, I went to my dad and said: 'Look at this guy, he grabs his arm, I used to play left-handed, he's like me and he's giving Ramy a hard time'.

"He's one of the fairest guys on tour, so hats off to him."

Brownell will take on Colombia's Miguel Rodriguez in the next round. Meanwhile, Hong Kong's Tomato Ho has earned a second round berth against the highest-ranked American in the women's draw - world No.7 Olivia Weaver - after she ousted wildcard and Chicago native Ava Lin in straight games.

"It's never easy to play the wildcard because the crowd is supporting her," said Ho.

"But it was nice to have a match with her and the crowd was amazing. I feel satisfied with my results recently and I'm happy to be in the second round of the Windy City Open. I'm looking forward to playing her, it's another home player, so I'm against the crowd again!"