|
WISPA Members Bulletin
May / June 2008
Some brief news from WISPA, the professional women's Tour.
Carla Khan Retires
After a long period struggling with back injuries Carla Khan has decided that she will not be competing on the Tour for the foreseeable future. As the Londoner who took Pakistani representation to follow in the footsteps of her top flight playing father Wasil has said ‘I just wanted to let you know that I have made a decision that for the moment I will not be pursuing competitive squash, as since the Swedish Open I realized that my health is more important’.
Carla, aged 26, had reached 21 in the rankings and won five Tour titles, most recently the Austrian Open in January 2008. Athletic and gritty on court, popular off it, we hope that she will stay involved even while not competing.
Milestones
An engagement to report is the Anglo / Oz pairing of Vicky Botwright and Stewart Boswell. Another member celebrating her engagement is Kerri Shields, who is marrying her coyly anonymous guy in October. Already at that point is Iranian member Simin Karami who was married last month.
WISPA Patrons Club
An exciting new scheme intended to help to strengthen our links with the developmental end of squash and thus play a larger part in supporting educational programmes.
And as a partnership it will enable committed people and indeed companies to be a part of this process.
WISPA Patrons will help enable WISPA develop ‘green shoot’ projects through their backing and enthusiasm to see squash for girls and women to grow, as well as WISPA marketing programmes and general promotional initiatives come on stream.
The initiative is part of the WISPA vision - i.e. more players, more nations, more media coverage……a successful World Tour!
Exploring every means we can to raise the profile of women's international squash, develop interest in it, and thus grow the Tour is what WISPA is about. That, in itself, will encourage participation and growth of the sport.
It will also assist us as we strive towards inclusion in the Olympics.
Membership of the WISPA Patrons Club will be open to anybody who wishes to join in the WISPA effort to play a part in promoting girls' and women's squash. Giving can be in the form of a membership or alternatively a direct contribution of resources e.g. air miles to a specific Patrons Club project.
Details can be found on the WISPA website: http://wispa.net/patrons_club.asp.
 |
