Grand Central Terminal to Host Squash Event

The J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions, the world’s largest squash spectator event and annually one of the world's major men's squash championships, will take place Jan. 17-24, and remains the only sporting event to be contested at Grand Central Terminal located in New York, NY.

 This year’s event will feature a Women’s Squash Association (WSA) sanctioned Gold Tour division in addition to the men’s Professional Squash Association (PSA) World Series event.

“The 17th edition of the J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions in Grand Central Terminal will indeed be a very special one this coming January as we are increasing the women's championship  to a WSA Gold 50 level,“ announced John Nimick, President of Squash Engine, Inc., the tournament promoter .  “For the first time in the tournament's prestigious history dating back to 1930, and with resounding support from the NYC squash community, the ToC will offer top level world ranking draws for both men and women.”

The J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions is the only sports championship hosted annually in Grand Central Terminal. Playing on the four-walled glass court under the Terminal’s spectacular chandeliers is the dream of every professional squash player.  The 2014 championships are expected to draw all of the world’s top players, including men’s world no.1 Ramy Ashour, the prodigiously talented Egyptian who, after winning the NetSuite Open last month, celebrated his ninth consecutive PSA title and 45th consecutive match victory since May 2012. Malaysian superstar Nicol David, the women’s world no.1 who has occupied the top spot in the WSA rankings continuously for the past seven years, will make her first appearance on the Grand Central glass court.

J.P Morgan, a global financial services company, is returning as the Platinum title sponsor of the tournament for the sixth year.  Lexington Partners, a sponsor for 15 consecutive years, is the event's Gold sponsor for the sixth year.  Comcast l NBC Universal returns as a Silver Sponsor, while S&P Capital IQ, (a part of McGraw Hill Financial providing research, data and analytics) joins the Silver Sponsor tier for the first time

The combination of the perennial sold-out stadium seating and the public viewing available on the front wall by what is expected to be more than 200,000 Grand Central commuters during tournament week makes the J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions the largest squash spectator event in the world.  Tickets range in price from $8 to $170 and may be purchased at www.tocsquash.com. Patron packages are also available at www.tocsquash.com.

The championship debuted as the US Professional Championship in 1930 and was renamed the Tournament of Champions in 1993 when it was presented in the third of its four years at the Winter Garden in the World Financial Center.  The tournament then moved to Grand Central Terminal in 1995, where it’s annual presence since has been interrupted only by the Terminal’s renovation from 1996 -1998. The Tournament of Champions has truly lived up to its name - all but two of the titleholders have either been no.1 in the world rankings or the winner of the annual World Open championship. 

Squash is contested in all the major international multi-sport regional games and has been rated by Forbes magazine as the healthiest sport based on cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, flexibility, muscular endurance, calories burned and risk of injury.  The sport was first played in England more than 140 years ago and is now popular in 185 countries, with nearly 50,000 squash courts worldwide. There are more than 16 million squash players around the world and 800,000 in the United States.