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Ryūnosuke Tsukue: incredible Squash skills
27-year-old Ryūnosuke Tsukue, a professional Squash player, is right now at the very top of his game. Clearly established as Japan’s no. 1, he recently won his 11th title in the Professional Squash Association (PSA) Squash Tour, making him Japan’s most titled player ever. In April he achieved the highest world ranking position in his career, 47th in a sport that is highly popular world-wide and especially in Asian countries, and where the standard of competition at the top is incredibly tight.
To start 2025, he had a remarkable success in the Motor City Open in Detroit, USA: “The Japanese No.1 Tsukue, who is currently placed 23 spots behind Timothy Brownell in the world rankings, delivered a performance full of terrific shot-making to defeat the US No.1 in front of a packed crowd,” it was reported. “Despite losing out in a nip-and-tuck third-game tie-break, Tsukue bounced back impressively to contain the attacking threats of Brownell.”
5-year title success in Japan’s top event
Then came the Yokohama Open on home ground, where Tsukue took his latest title. This has been a pinnacle in his annual season for quite some time; it was his fifth Yokohama title in a row! He first won it in 2021 when he was 22 years old.
This latest success didn’t come easily, however, in an event where he was seeded no. 3 behind Hong Kong, China duo Alex Lau and Henry Leung. He won over top seed Lau in the semi-final, Lau having beaten Tsukue in their last two meetings, but had to do things the hard way, seeing a 2-game lead wiped away before eventually coming through in a deciding fifth game.
That set him up for a final showdown against second seed Leung, in what was the pair’s first-ever matchup on the PSA Squash Tour. Spurred on by an excited home crowd, the players split the first two games, but it was game three that would prove to be crucial, as Tsukue came out on top of a nail-biting tiebreak, going on to close out victory in the fourth game….
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