Pro-Scoring Hails New Era For Women's Squash In Kuala Lumpur

The $53,500 CIMB Malaysian Open is making squash history today as the first women's Tour event to use point-a-rally scoring.

The WISPA World Tour Gold championship introduces the first change in scoring from the traditional 'hand-in-hand-out' system - in which a player can only win a point when serving - which has been used since the Women's International Squash Players' Association was formed in 1984.

As before, all matches will be best-of-five-games - but the games will feature point-a-rally to 11 points, the same as the scoring used on the men's PSA Tour.

"Scoring is a fundamental part of the game, which is why WISPA has spent a good deal of time discussing and evaluating Pro-Scoring," explained WISPA Chief Executive Andrew Shelley.

"Now we have committed to it, confident in its success, and look forward to its formal unveiling on one of our really big stages - the CIMB Malaysian Open. And there, for the first time there will be uniformity for the players, the spectators, huge media coverage and in our worldwide results output. A milestone in Malaysia!"

Australia's world champion Rachael Grinham is looking forward to seeing the effects of this new introduction: "It's a big change for the game mentally, which I think is huge because I believe at the top of the women's game most matches are won mentally.

"From my experience in practice matches, I've found the pace to be much faster, maybe because of a hint of urgency on the mind. I think it will still take some time for everyone to get settled into the new scoring.

"I do believe it will make matches much closer, which will be better from the spectators' point of view. It will be interesting to see what happens in KL," added the third seed.

The women's event (the main draw of which gets underway on Wednesday after two days of qualifying) will also be historic for a further reason: It will mark the first appearance on the Tour by Datuk Nicol David since the Malaysian world number one acquired the distinguished title in her home state of Penang earlier in the month, becoming the youngest ever recipient of a Datukship.

David is favourite to win the Malaysian Open title for a fourth successive year - after reaching her sixth final in a row!