From August 14 through August 17th, Maspeth Squash celebrated five years of outdoor squash on the steel court with the sponsors, professionals, and friends who have come out to play since the court first opened in June 2020.

From the beginning

From June 2020 until today, the steel court in Maspeth has been a magnet for professionals, squash tourists, and workers at Maspeth Welding in Queens. Hundreds of teaching, coaching, and touring pros, as well as thousands of travelling squash fanatics, have made appointments to come out and play.

Back in 2021, we asked our business friend at Intsel Steel to help support a new tournament experience on the steel court, and the Intsel Steel Outdoor Squash Pro Invitational was born. $5000 was the prize; winner takes all. Sixty-four teaching, coaching, and touring pros mixed it up with top women and men amateurs in one draw. All matches were self-scheduled according to deadlines, handicapped, and self-refereed until the finals. Men and women were in one draw. The prize was presented in cash at the finals. The winner, Nathan Lake (over Lyell Fuller), held up the heavy, arty tournament permanent trophy for the first time.

For love of squash

At its heart, this invitational tournament has been all about thanking the pioneering pros who've come out to this new court for new experiences to help grow the game, and to promote networking and new connections among young, old, local, international, teaching, touring, and coaching pros. Setting up their own match dates, playing with handicaps, self-refereeing, and getting cash on the spot - these tournament features created a very positive and collaborative vibe.

In 2022, the prize money increased to $20,000 for two separate draws - one for men and one for women - still a pro-am event. $5K to the winner of each draw. Timmy Brownell (over Jaymie Haycocks) and Ineta Mackevica (over Marina Stefanoni) won the cash. Matches were self-scheduled, with a bit of slippage into Fall for this summer tournament.

In 2023, the prize money doubled to $30K, again two draws, self-scheduled, $5K to the winners, with a bit more slippage of the schedule into the next year. Shajahan Khan defeated Timmy Brownell, and Alina Bushma defeated Marina Stefanoni (15-13 in the fifth) in their finals.

The self-scheduling slipped a bit more for the 2024 Intsel Steel IV $35K, ending in the spring and summer of 2025. Over the years, the professional tour scheduling, coaching and summer camps, and holiday breaks started to wreak havoc on self-scheduling. Alina Bushma defeated Laila Sedky, and Nathan Lake picked up his second Intsel Steel win and $5K cash prize.

Growing up, a change in format for Intsel 5

To celebrate 5 years of outdoor squash and the growth of the Intsel Steel Pro Invitational from $5K in 2021 to $40K in 2025, some changes were needed -

mainly, we changed from a summer of self-scheduling matches with increasing slippage to two rounds of play - qualifiers and main draws - for men and women. The qualifiers would be $3K and the main draws would be $17K, with the winner getting $6K in cash, runner up $3K.

Intsel Steel 5 was meant to honor and celebrate with the players who've come out to play in our Intsel tournaments and other events over the past five years. And, to build the summer of squash festival, 3 other events were added to the calendar: The 1st Big Ball Squash57 $6K Challenge, The Maspeth Welding PSA $6K Women's Steel Court Championship, and the MaspethWelding PSA $6K Men's Steel Court Championship. 

With the Big Ball, Women's PSA, Intsel Qualifiers, Men's PSA, and the Intsel Main Draws, Maspeth Squash hosted over 90 professional matches on the steel court this summer from June through August. And, looking back over the past five years, Maspeth Squash has hosted 21 professional tournaments and events providing $200K in new prize monies and experiences for hundreds of professionals who've come out to play.

The Summer Festival Intsel Steel V Final Performances were remarkable

In the end, Timmy Brownell prevailed over Nathan Lake in 3 games. Now, both players on the PSA World Tour carry two Intsel Steel Invitational wins and some more cash into their next pro tour season. Nathan was the first PSA Tour pro to reach out to Maspeth about the court in 2020. Spencer Lovejoy, one of the first pros to come out to play in Maspeth in 2020, recommended the Intsel Steel tournament to Timmy.

The women's final is another story, still in the making. Women's winner of the Qualifer Event, Hannah Chukwu, was delayed in China. Caroline Fouts replaced her last minute. Luke Butterworth recommended Caroline, who won two rounds and faced Marina Stefanoni in the finals. Both Caroline (age 19) and Marina (age 22) are top US juniors with amazing titles, part of the Harvard women's team legacy, and are coached by Luke Butterworth, LB Squash in Greenwich. Caroline is going into her sophomore year, top of the Harvard team with Lucy Stefanoni, and Marina is going into her next PSA World Tour season with a world ranking of #28. Caroline has been as high as #59.

With Alwyn Callendar refereeing, the crowd excited about the start of the featured match of the night in Maspeth, and the first game score at 9 to 6 for Caroline, the skies opened up and it started pouring rain. The match is suspended, to be completed at a future date to be announced. Outdoor squash rain delay.

What we are learning about outdoor squash

We've seen many things at Maspeth over the past five years of ourdoor squash, including a raccoon family living under the court. These are some things we've seen:

• pros show up from all over the world, on time

• pros breathe life into our sport culture, know what's best, and play best when they ref themselves.

• taking photos of the competitors at the start of the match humanizes it

• women pros are the best culture, social, caring, collaborative

• men pros argue too much

• pros need to network more professionally; there should be a teaching association

• pros are super personalities, super accessible

• pros need more help with billetting, need much higher pay for their art, what they do

This is a very unique sport, with high addiction/indulgence factors, a special inclusive/exclusive sport, with enormous growth potential, outside too, with steel walls.

This is a chat gpt recap

Five Years of Intsel Steel Outdoor Squash

2021 – Intsel Steel I ($5K, Winner-Takes-All)

  • 64 pros + amateurs in one draw

  • Self-scheduled, handicapped, self-refereed

  • Champion: Nathan Lake over Lyell Fuller

2022 – Intsel Steel II ($20K, Two Draws)

  • Separate men’s & women’s pro-am events

  • Champion: Timmy Brownell over Jaymie Haycocks

  • Champion: Ineta Mackevica over Marina Stefanoni

2023 – Intsel Steel III ($30K, Two Draws)

  • Purse grows to $30K, extended into 2024

  • Champion: Shajahan Khan over Brownell

  • Champion: Alina Bushma over Stefanoni (15–13 in the 5th)

2024–25 – Intsel Steel IV ($35K, Two Draws)

  • Schedule stretched into 2025

  • Champion: Bushma over Laila Sedky

  • Champion: Lake wins second Intsel title

2025 – Intsel Steel V ($40K, Festival Format)

  • New qualifiers + main draw system

  • Part of Maspeth Summer Festival with 90+ matches

  • Men’s Champion: Brownell over Lake

  • Women’s Final: Fouts vs. Stefanoni, suspended in rain delay