Corporate Challenge, Sept in NYC
Aug 28, 2004, By Rob Dinerman; SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2004;

MSRA To Organize A Corporate Challenge In September

With an eye towards emulating the Corporate Challenge Central Park runs and U. S. Open tennis events that have enjoyed such success in New York in recent years, the Metropolitan Squash Racquets Association (MSRA) will for the first time in the 80-year history of the Association be running a Corporate Challenge squash event next month in an effort to attract additional sponsorship, bring more new players into the game and jump-start the 2004-2005 local season.

The Corporate Challenge will consist of eight three-player teams, all of which are guaranteed three matches to be played on consecutive weekends during the period from September 18-26. Depending on the success this initial venture enjoys, MSRA President Alex Lau has announced that additional versions of this concept will be scheduled later this season.

The formation of this event is largely the brain-child of recently-appointed MSRA Board member Anand Satchit, the Corporate Challenge co-director along with Lau, and a long-time squash player who works at Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment firm which has already committed to enter a team (so have McKinsey & Co. and Reuters, with a number of other firms expressing interest as well).
The entry fee is only $150.00 per team, which covers court fees, T shirts and prizes for the winners and runners-up. Entries must be received, with payment, by September 8th, and multiple team entries may be accepted at the discretion of the league directors.

The goal is to involve as many different companies as possible, so if eight companies enter the league, each company will be limited to a single team.

The entire project represents another step towards what is hoped will be the revival of the MSRA, once viewed as the premier local squash association in the country, which however faded badly during the 1990's, with many private clubs losing interest and increasingly declining to enter teams in the MSRA league or to support the various MSRA events, a number of which consequently had to be discontinued due to insufficient entries.

In the last year or two, the MSRA has begun to take small steps in a positive direction (the recent restoration of the MRSA Mixed Doubles and an uptick in the quality of the Hyder being two such examples), and this phenomenon has not gone unnoticed: the fact that the Yale Club, Princeton Club and NYSC Uptown Club have already firmly committed to provide courts for the Corporate Challenge event (with several other clubs likely to join them) is a crucial step in the right direction. No local association can truly thrive without the active support of its member clubs, and the enthusiasm with which this proposal has been received is an encouraging sign that those clubs may well be coming back into the fold again.

Anyone interested in entering a team in the upcoming MSRA Corporate Challenge or in inquiring further about it is urged to contact Messrs. Lau and Satchit at their respective email addresses, Alex.Lau@msra.net and Anand.Satchit@msra.net. Checks are to be made payable to the MSRA and the entry form and fee are to be sent to the MSRA at 2A Anchor Court, Huntington Station, NY 11746.

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