In April, just days after the cancellation of the Super Series Finals, originally scheduled to be held in May at the Broadgate Arena in London, the PSA announced that they had concluded a pioneering seven-year agreement with Ziad Al-Turki, Vice-President of the ATCO Group, and Paul Walters, founder of the internationalSPORTgroup™, which will provide a total minimum cash prize fund of US $675,000.

Ziad Al-Turki first became associated with squash in 2005 when he launched the Saudi International, a PSA Super Series Platinum event in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, and in a remarkably short space of time he has become arguably the most important person in the sport.

Many know Ziad as the man who has made the $210,000 Saudi International the world's richest tournament, but few are aware of his passion and drive, not to create an iconic tournament for his own pleasure and self gratification, but to help the sport achieve a higher profile and greater share of media coverage.

A new order

Through major events such as the Saudi International and Super Series Finals, Ziad hopes to help the sport reach new audiences, and to show that squash is one of the most exciting participation and spectator sports in the world.

To achieve his vision, Ziad believes that many areas need addressing – a more stable World Tour, a better ordered calendar, and stronger commercial support, so that the year does not finish with exhausted and injured players.

"I've been talking to some big companies. I'm trying to get a World Tour sponsor to support the major tournaments to improve them.

"The Tour should flow from Europe, to the US, to Asia and then back to the Middle East. Instead of which players are going backwards and forwards all over the place, which is wrong. Once I get a sponsor it will be easy to sit with other promoters and the PSA and work out dates."

Ziad can attempt this partly through the knowledge and influence acquired through his business – which, with twenty-six different divisions, provides services for oil and gas. But his high-powered plans contrast with his low-key introduction to the sport.



Starting in Saudi

There were no coaches in Saudi Arabia, but Ziad still played for two or three years before going school in Connecticut, which is where, he says, he first realised what a squash court should be like. So when he returned home the first thing he wanted to do was build one.

"I started as a kid when my uncle built a squash court. He had his house in a square.

"There was nothing correct about it: the floor was cement, the walls weren't straight, and the dimensions weren't right. But we just started playing anyway.

"It was when I had my own court that I realised why I couldn't hit ball properly - because I needed glasses!!'

Ziad wants not only to develop the World Tour, but to alter his country's image.

Ziad has become more than a businessman and squash entrepreneur, but, in a divided and dangerous world, something beyond value: a cultural go-between and a peacemaker.

"Once people just thought of Saudi Arabia in terms of oil. Now they think of terrorists.

"But we are twenty-eight million Saudis and the rest of us are not like that. We have victims by terrorists the same as the rest of the people. Talk about September 11th; many times before the attack on the US we were under threat.

"There are many things to see here. It has great diversity. And a lot of enthusiastic squash players, and kids who are quite good."