US Open History

401 N. Michigan Avenue, Pioneer Court

Wednesday September 2nd  
5:00 PM  First half of 1st Round Matches
6:00 PM  First half of 1st Round Matches
7:00 PM  First half of 1st Round Matches
8:00 PM  First half of 1st Round Matches
  
Thursday September 3rd  
5:00 PM  Second half of 1st Round Matches
6:00 PM  Second half of 1st Round Matches
7:00 PM  Second half of 1st Round Matches
8:00 PM  Second half of 1st Round Matches
  
Friday September 4th  
5:00 PM  1st Quarter Final Match
6:00 PM  2nd Quarter Final Match
7:00 PM  3rd Quarter Final Match
8:00 PM  Last Quarter Final Match
  
Saturday September 5th  
6:00 PM  1st Men's Semi Finals
7:30 PM  2nd Men's Semi Finals
  
Sunday September 6th  
7:00 PM  Men's Finals
8:00 PM  Closing Ceremonies

Men's U.S. Open Squash Champions

The U.S. Open Squash Championship began on New Year's Day, 1954 at the University Club of New York City and literally changed the sport of squash overnight. The event, which was first run as a hardball tournament for the top amateur and professional players in the world, crowned its first champion Henri Salaun, a French-American amateur player. At the end of the four-day event Open director Ned Bigelow presented Salaun the Open's $500 grand prize. Salaun's victory over Hashim Khan in the finals graced the front pages of major newspapers, including The New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, and the Washington Post, all of which were filled with photographs of the Open. New York was abuzz with the excitement.

The Open remained in New York for the next two years, but from 1957 to 1965, the event crisscrossed the country, quickly becoming a prominent tournament in the world of professional squash. It was hosted in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Hartford, Indianapolis, and Atlantic City, and returned to the University Club of New York in 1963 only to be shuttled off to Buffalo and then Wilmington the following years. During these early years the Open was dominated by the presence of the Khan family. Hashim Khan won three titles between 1956 and 1963, while his relative, Roshan Khan, also won three titles in the same decade.

In 1966 the U.S. Open merged with the Canadian Open, forming the North American Open, which remained a hardball event. In the 1970s and 80s the Khans continued to overwhelm the squash scene. Sharif Khan made fifteen straight North American finals appearances from 1968 to 1982, winning twelve of those titles. All in all, the Khan family owns a combined twenty-nine U.S. Open and North American Open Championships. The U.S. Open was reborn, once again as a hardball event (while the North American Open ran separately), in 1983 when Howie Rosenthal promoted the event. Both the 1983 and 1984 U.S. Opens were held at the Yale Club of New York with American great Mark Talbott taking both titles.

It was not until 1985 that the U.S. Open was reinstituted as a purely professional event under the supervision of Tom Jones, but this time as a softball tournament. Jones moved the Open out to San Francisco and was one of the first to experiment with the 17-inch tin and 15-point scoring format (which was later adopted world-wide for softball events in 1989), where the Open was received very well.

In 1986 Jones moved the Open to Houston, and the following year the venue was switched to the Palladium Night Club in New York City where a brand new, imported portable court from Europe was set up on the dance floor. The Open achieved enormous success that year and has continued to thrive amongst an eager American audience, where players from across the world, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Pakistan, and France have all claimed championships.

In the late 1990's, U.S. SQUASH acquired the rights to the trademark and is responsible for the management of the title.