Irish players enjoyed a fantastic week on the PSA circuit, with Breanne Flynn winning the Edinburgh Open and Michael Creaven, her Sutton clubmate, triumphing at the Proracket Open in Oporto.
Seeded second at the tournament in Scotland, which coincided with her winning the Squash Ireland Senior Player of the Year Award for 2025, Flynn was in sparkling form across her four-match winning run.
Players from Scotland, France and Wales were beaten to qualify for Sunday’s final against Yu Jie Chen of Malaysia, and Flynn produced a disciplined performance to comfortably win 3-0 (11-8, 11-3, 11-4).
The title victory lifted her three places in the women’s rankings to No.105, and the circuit now takes her to Salzburg where she is the top seed at the Mozart Open and drawn to play on Thursday against either Chaewon Song, the No.194 from Korea, or Nathalie Malmström, the No.318 from Sweden.
Creaven, who was seeded fourth in the 19-player event in Portugal, also enjoyed a four-match winning run to take the title in a hectic final where he defeated Amir Samimi, the third seed and PSA No.252 from Luxembourg.
The match went down to the wire, with Creaven holding his nerve in an exhausting five-game encounter to win 3-2 (11-8, 9-11, 11-1, 9-11, 11-9).
Creaven’s success had a huge impact on the latest PSA rankings, as he jumped up 35 places to No.334. That has left him closing in on the No.312 career best ranking he achieved in March last year, with this coming weekend’s 16-player PSA Limerick Open his next event.
He will be joined at the Limerick LTC on the Ennis Road by Oisin Logan, another Sutton player who was a big rankings riser. Logan’s opening round win at the Edinburgh Open moved him up 17 places to No.386.
Elsewhere, Senior Nationals champion Sam Buckley moved down three spots to No.102 following a training week ahead of his opening match at the Odense Open on Tuesday versus Cristian Romero, the No.328 from Spain.
Aaron Allpress, the No.216, is also in Denmark, beginning on Tuesday against Leo Chung, the No.118 from Hong Kong China.
Conor Moran, who this week plays at the Mozart Open in Salzburg along with Flynn, moved up two places to No.147 following his opening round win at the Poznan Open over Titouan Isambard of France. He next plays Ayann Vaziralli, the No.187 from Pakistan, in Austria on Thursday.
Hannah Craig’s opening round win at the Steel City Open in Pittsburgh over Ainaa Amani, the No.53 from Malaysia, was worth a two-place gain in the latest rankings, the Irish Senior Nationals champions moving up to No.64 ahead of next week’s Calgary Open.
Hannah McGugan, the No.226, was also an opening round winner at the Edinburgh Open. She, too, will now move on to Limerick where 15 players are entered in this coming weekend’s PSA women’s event, but only after competing at the Mozart Open where she takes on Scotland’s Robyn McAlpine, the No.194, on Wednesday.
