The 2018âÂÂ19 PSA World Tour is the international squash tour organised circuit organized by the Professional Squash Association (PSA) for the 2018 squash season. It's the 4th PSA season since the merger of PSA and WSA associations in 2015.
The most important tournaments in the series are the Men's and Women's PSA World Championship. The tour also features two circuits of regular events - PSA World Tour (formerly PSA World Series), which feature the highest prize money and the best fields; and PSA Challenger Tour with prize money ranging $5,500âÂÂ$30,000. In the middle of the year, the PSA World Tour tour is concluded by the Men's and Women's PSA World Tour Finals in Cairo, the season-ending championships for the top 8 rated players from World Tour level tournaments.
Starting in August 2018, PSA revamped its professional tour structure in two individual circuits; PSA World Tour and PSA Challenger Tour.
PSA World Tour (formerly PSA World Series) will comprise most important tournaments in prize money ($50,000âÂÂ$1,000,000) for more experienced and higher-ranked players, including PSA World Championships and PSA World Tour Finals, labelled as following:
PSA Challenger Tour tournaments will offer a $5,500âÂÂ$30,000 prize-money, ideal circuit for less-experienced and upcoming players, that will include the following tiers:
Further, PSA will implement some rule changes like the removing of qualification rounds among others. Also PSA will grant 7 World Championship wildcards for winners of selected PSA Challenger Tour chosen by PSA. Additionally, PSA and WSF will jointly manage PSA Satellite Tour, a circuit for amateur or junior players who aim to become professionals.
PSA World Tour events also have a separate World Tour ranking. Points for this are calculated on a cumulative basis after each World Tour event. The top eight players at the end of the calendar year are then eligible to play in the PSA World Tour Finals.
Ranking points vary according to tournament tier being awarded as follows:
(QE): 2019 PSA World Squash Championships Qualifying Event.
(QE): 2019 PSA World Squash Championships Qualifying Event.
(QE): 2019 PSA World Squash Championships Qualifying Event.
(QE): 2019 PSA World Squash Championships Qualifying Event.
â¡: Not a PSA World Tour tournament.
The players/nations are sorted by:
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Winners of a select group of PSA Challenger Tour tournaments chosen by PSA receive a wildcard for the 2019 PSA World Championship. The qualified players were:
These are the winners of the most relevant national squash championships.
Following is a list of notable players (winners of a main tour title, and/or part of the PSA Men's World Rankings and Women's World Rankings top 30 for at least one month) who announced their retirement from professional squash, became inactive, or were permanently banned from playing, during the 2018âÂÂ19 season: